Established projects demonstrate a counter-trend rally! An average monthly increase of 62%. What are the "new growth" narratives behind this?

Author: Nancy, PANews

Recently, the overall crypto market has weakened, with most assets erasing their gains for the year in the short term. Surprisingly, a group of “old faces” that have gone through multiple cycles have risen against the trend during liquidity tightening. These narratives have long been disenchanted by the market, also sparking concerns about a “doomsday chariot”行情.

This article from PANews compiles 11 well-performing veteran projects recently. As of November 11, their average increase over the past 30 days was about 55.3%, with ZEC, ICP, and others performing particularly well, recovering the sharp decline from October 11. However, compared to their all-time highs, they still fell by about 90%. Behind these “old trees sprouting new buds,” there are not only market hype but also multiple factors such as technological upgrades, ecosystem development, and token empowerment supporting their counter-trend performance.

Zcash (ZEC)

Zcash has been a major driver of this privacy wave. CoinGecko data shows that ZEC increased by 151.2% over the past 30 days, reaching a new high since January 2018, but still down about 79.1% from its historical peak.

Market attention has been partly driven by public endorsements from figures like Silicon Valley angel investor Naval and BitMEX founder Arthur Hayes. Meanwhile, Zcash’s product and ecosystem developments have also contributed to the price rise. In October, Grayscale announced that its Zcash Trust fund would open private placements to qualified investors; in November, Zcash developer ECC released its Q4 roadmap, focusing on reducing technical debt, improving user privacy and usability, and ensuring smooth management of development funds; subsequently, the Zcash Foundation launched a new official website to strengthen privacy financial infrastructure.

Additionally, since Zcash completed its second halving in November 2024, reducing block rewards and limiting new supply, this has also provided some price support.

Dash (DASH)

CoinGecko data shows that Dash increased by about 104.5% over the past 30 days, reaching a new high since December 2021, but still down 94.6% from its all-time high. Dash stated that its recent good performance is not accidental but results from long-term fundamental development. Key achievements in recent years include the release of DashSpend, in-depth research on bill payments, comprehensive improvements to confidential payments, DEX support (added to Maya Protocol), and the launch of the decentralized application platform Evolution.

Monero (XMR)

With privacy narratives becoming a market hotspot, Monero’s attention has surged significantly. CoinGecko data shows that XMR rose by 43.6% in the past 30 days, hitting a new high since May 2021, but still down 22.7% from its all-time high.

In October, Monero released the important Fluorine Fermi upgrade, greatly enhancing protection against “spy nodes.” Since then, it has rolled out software and wallet updates, held multiple technical, research, and community meetings, and continued to promote its Community Proposal System (CCS).

NEAR Protocol (NEAR)

According to CoinGecko data, NEAR increased by 20.6% over the past month but remains 85.5% below its all-time high.

Last month, NEAR Protocol announced that the House of Stake had officially launched on the mainnet, allowing users to lock NEAR tokens to gain governance rights and rewards. Meanwhile, NEAR’s ecosystem revival has been driven by its transaction execution framework Near Intents (supporting cross-chain native transactions, fast settlement, and AI-friendly features), which has accumulated a total transaction volume of $4.5 billion, with nearly $1.1 billion in the past 7 days and total fees reaching $8.2 million.

Regarding tokens, a recent proposal to halve NEAR’s annual inflation rate to 2.5% did not pass the voting threshold, but the core team still plans to incorporate the inflation halving into the upcoming protocol upgrade. Additionally, Nasdaq-listed shipping company OceanPal announced in October that it completed a $120 million PIPE to establish a wholly owned subsidiary, SovereignAI, jointly building a NEAR-based crypto treasury and confidential AI cloud platform.

Related: Why does NEAR aim for daily layer income of $400,000 while its mainnet still struggles?

Internet Computer (ICP)

Driven by AI product momentum, Internet Computer has regained market attention. CoinGecko data shows ICP increased by 111.1% over the past 30 days, reaching a new high this year, but still down 99% from its all-time high.

Recently, DFINITY Foundation released an update for its ICP-based DeAI platform Caffeine, now open to everyone. The product allows users to quickly generate, deploy, and iterate complete Web3 applications through natural language chat, without programming skills.

Related: DFINITY Foundation bets on AI—how does Caffeine drive ICP’s surge?

Uniswap

On November 11, with Uniswap launching a proposal to activate protocol fee and UNI burn mechanisms, UNI’s price surged. CoinGecko data shows UNI increased by 43.6% over the past 30 days. Still, it is down 80.4% from its all-time high.

On November 11, Uniswap Labs and the Uniswap Foundation jointly proposed the “UNIfication Proposal,” aiming to activate the protocol fee mechanism, implement UNI token burns, and establish a Uniswap growth budget. The goal is to unify incentives across the entire Uniswap ecosystem, making the protocol a default DEX for tokenized value.

Related: Major Uniswap proposal goes live: activating fee switch and burn mechanism, while competitors call it a “strategic mistake.”

Filecoin (FIL)

CoinGecko data shows FIL increased by about 51.5% over the past 30 days, reaching a nearly 8-month high, but still down about 98.9% from its all-time peak.

Filecoin is integrating AI and DePIN narratives, accelerating its transition from decentralized storage to on-chain cloud services. Over the past month, Filecoin has focused on infrastructure and ecosystem development, emphasizing data storage, cross-chain interoperability, and fee optimization. For example, in October, Filecoin Pin was officially released, supporting one-click anchoring of IPFS content to the Filecoin chain for encrypted, verifiable persistent storage, with CLI and GitHub Actions integration to lower developer on-chain entry barriers. After the v26 network upgrade, gas fees were halved, leading to growth in daily new storage contracts and active contracts. The ecosystem fund injected 500,000 FIL (worth millions of dollars) into over 200 projects via the RetroPGF-3 program. Recently, Filecoin hinted at transforming from a storage network to an on-chain cloud service supporting on-chain data retrieval and computing services, with an official page now live and whitelist applications open. It also partnered with Akave Cloud to launch a decentralized object storage service compatible with S3 interfaces, aiding enterprises and DePIN projects in migrating to blockchain storage.

Arweave (AR)

With rapid expansion of AI applications and accelerated global data center infrastructure, demand for high-performance storage chips has surged, boosting the entire storage ecosystem. Decentralized storage projects like Arweave have also attracted funding. CoinGecko data shows AR increased by about 31.7% over the past 30 days, hitting a near 3-month high, but still down about 93.8% from its all-time high.

Starknet (STRK)

Recently, with the rise of zero-knowledge proof (ZK) technology and privacy tracks, Starknet has gained market attention. Notably, both Starknet and Zcash co-founders are Eli Ben-Sasson, which has helped boost its visibility. CoinGecko data shows STRK increased by about 50.3% over the past 30 days but remains down 96.1% from its peak.

On the technical and ecosystem front, Starknet has been active recently. For example, it launched Starknet Earn, a Bitcoin yield product, and started beta testing; Circle’s native USDC and CCTP V2 announced deployment on Starknet; Starkware released a new version, Starknet v0.14.1; and Starkware announced deployment of its next-generation zero-knowledge proof system, S-two, on Starknet mainnet, claiming it to be the fastest and most privacy-preserving proof system in production.

ZKsync (ZK)

Recently, ZKsync has attracted attention due to endorsements from Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin and its ZK technology. CoinGecko data shows ZK increased by about 39.8% over the past 30 days but remains down 82.8% from its all-time high.

Technologically, ZKsync recently launched the Atlas upgrade of ZK Stack, introducing high-performance sequencers to achieve sub-second transaction confirmation and faster cross-chain settlement. This provides a faster and more flexible infrastructure for enterprises and institutions migrating their operations to blockchain.

Regarding tokens, ZKsync founder Alex recently proposed a major update to the tokenomics model. In the future, ZK tokens will no longer be used solely for governance; instead, all network revenue will be used to buy back and burn ZK tokens, fostering a self-reinforcing, sustainable economic system.

Related: ZKsync gains Vitalik’s support but remains low in activity; some Ethereum Layer 2s are experiencing a phased recovery.

Neo (NEO)

CoinGecko data shows NEO increased by 16.1% over the past 30 days, down 97.3% from its all-time high. Over the past month, Neo has made progress in both technology and market development. For example, Neo deployed the NEO X mainnet v0.4.2 upgrade, introducing protections against maximum extractable value (MEV) exploitation at the consensus layer; officially shut down the Legacy mainnet; opened the Neo X core codebase to the community; and recently, Neo and SpoonOS launched the Scoop AI Hackathon.