Inside the Zero Knowledge (ZK) sector, 15 October 2026
The Zero Knowledge sector tracked 31 constituents with a combined market cap of approximately $25.2 billion as of 15 October 2026.
Sector Composition and Concentration
As of 15 October 2026, the Zero Knowledge (ZK) sector covered 31 tracked constituents with a combined market capitalisation of $25.21 billion. Concentration is pronounced: Zcash alone carried a market cap of approximately $18.78 billion, representing roughly 74.5% of the total sector figure. The next largest member, POL (ex-MATIC), stood at approximately $997 million, and the remaining listed members ranged from $596 million (Starknet) down to $58.9 million (ALEO). This distribution means sector-level aggregates are heavily influenced by the single largest constituent, and movements in the broader cohort may not register meaningfully at the sector level.
Fee Streams: Present and Absent
Of the 15 largest members shown, seven reported a measurable annualised fee figure derived from the trailing 30 days to 15 October 2026: Zcash ($1.65 million), POL ex-MATIC ($28.18 million), Starknet ($3.12 million), ZKsync ($156,488), Railgun ($4.71 million), Immutable ($8,321), and Linea ($489,721). The remaining eight of the fifteen largest members — including Midnight, Ozone Chain, Humanity, Horizen, Mina Protocol, DUSK, GAL, and ALEO — returned no fee data. The absence of a fee figure may reflect a protocol's design, data availability constraints, or negligible on-chain activity; the data as reported does not distinguish between these cases.
Distance from All-Time Highs
Across the 15 largest members, the percent below all-time high figures span a wide range. The smallest drawdowns from peak appear for Railgun (-55.5%) and Midnight (-64.6%), while the deepest drawdowns are recorded for Mina Protocol (-99.2%), ALEO (-99.4%), Immutable (-98.3%), and Starknet (-98.2%). The majority of listed members sit more than 90% below their respective all-time highs, indicating that peak valuations were reached at meaningfully different points in time and under different market conditions for each asset.
Seven-Day Return Dispersion
Over the trailing 7 days to 15 October 2026, return dispersion across the listed members was substantial. Starknet recorded the largest positive return at +52.9% and ZKsync at +44.7%, while Humanity recorded the largest negative return at -20.7% and Mina Protocol at -19.1%. This breadth of outcomes within a single sector label over one week illustrates that constituents do not behave as a uniform group.
What the Sector Label Does and Does Not Convey
The ZK label groups assets by a shared cryptographic technique — zero-knowledge proofs — but the constituents serve materially different functions: privacy-preserving payment networks, general-purpose layer-2 rollups, gaming infrastructure, identity platforms, and programmable privacy protocols are all present. The label therefore signals a methodological commonality rather than economic or functional equivalence. Readers should treat sector-level aggregates as a starting point for organising data, not as evidence that the underlying assets are directly comparable in purpose, user base, or revenue model.