Zcash was the leading crypto token on the market cap leaderboards last week. By Tuesday, the coin remained the fifth top gainer among crypto assets behind Aptos (APT) at #4, with Sui (SUI) topping the gains for the week at +57%.

ZECs 7-day gains Tuesday were +29%, but from trough to peak (between Aug. 5 and Aug. 12) of the most recent rally, its price gained 56% against the dollar.

So why did Zcashs price jump the most over the past week while the rest of the cryptocurrency sector had stout losses to recover from over the same period, with plenty of demand from die-hard crypto investors evident in the broader recovery rally?

Most likely because Zcash founder Zooko has conspicuously returned to lead the privacy coins development and marketing. Meanwhile, MetaMask, the most popular Web3 for Ethereum and most utilized decentralized finance (DeFi) wallet overall, announced support for the asset.

ZCash founder Zooko Is Back

In December, Zooko Wilcox, the now 50-year-old founder of Zcash, resigned as CEO of the cryptos private developer, the Electric Coin Company. In an open resignation letter published to Medium, Zooko then wrote:

I’ll always be grateful that I had the opportunity to live out one of my science fiction dreams in reality. However, in the long run, I don’t think this conflation of Zcash with me personally is healthy for me, (or for) Zcash. Zcash’s role in human history is, and will be, much bigger than any individual.

Eight months later, Zooko revealed to Forbes Magazine that he was joining forces with a Swiss non-profit named Shielded Labs to lead the crypto he founded as an outsider.

He has the support of Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin, who recently said, For something as important as Zcash, its entire future can’t be subject to the results of a small group of people having ego fights with each other.

MetaMask Announced Support for ZCash

Zcash prices recent gains are about more than hype over what the founder might do next at Shielded Labs. In addition to Zookos return to the zero-knowledge proof-powered cash anonymity project, markets learned in early August that MetaMask will now support integrations for Zcash.

Whoo-hoo! Zooko said on Tuesday, Aug. 6. Zcash coming to MetaMask thanks to MetaMask and the Zcash Community Grants Committee!

He posted a screenshot of a Zcash Foundation post on the Zcash community forum that said:

MetaMask has matched $150,000 to support the development of a MetaMask Snap that will support Shielded ZEC.

Moneros price also pumped along with ZEC last week. It could be that there was a privacy coin bash in crypto exchange markets after the Zcash rally.

Zcash is a privacy-focused anonymity coin a fork off the Bitcoin codebase and blockchain.