Zephyr Protocol ranks #195 of 504 cryptocurrencies. On a list that also counts tokens, memecoins, wrapped coins, staked derivatives and stablecoins it appears at #1478: 1283 of the 1477 assets ahead of it are not native coins but tokens or claims. A token is issued on a host blockchain rather than running its own; a claim stands for an asset already counted. Of the 1710 non-native assets CoinSpectrum lists above it by market cap, about 75% are tokens, 20% are claims on other assets and 6% are memecoins.
| CoinSpectrum Grade | C · 63/100 · provisional |
|---|---|
| Rank among cryptocurrencies | #195 |
| Rank counting claims | #1478 |
| Market capitalisation | $3M |
| Price | $0.2353 |
| Circulating supply | 12,315,498 ZEPH |
| Maximum supply | no fixed cap |
| Consensus family | Proof of Work |
| Consensus mechanism | RandomX (CPU) |
| Own hashrate | 29 MH/s |
| Network purpose | Private payments |
| Ledger type | Single-asset ledger |
| Launch distribution | Premine |
Market figures from the 28 October 2026 build. Open the live view for every exchange's price, and charts.
C — 63 out of 100, provisional (from 18 of 20 criteria, 28 October 2026 build). With what is not yet measured anywhere from nothing to full marks, the score would be 57 to 68 (C to B).
| Criterion | Score | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Leading Consensus Mechanisms (Source) | 10 | group average |
| Consensus: leader ladder | 10 | Proof of work: 10 of 10 on the ladder of consensus families ranked by their largest chain's market cap |
| Consensus: family ladder | 10 | Proof of work: 10 of 10 on the ladder of families ranked by the combined market cap of their chains |
| Cryptocurrency Standards (Source) | 5.5 | group average, 11 of 13 measured |
| Sound Money Qualities (6 checks) | 4.2 | 2.5 of 6 points source |
| Scarcity: a fixed cap that holds, and a supply near 21 million | 4.8 | no fixed maximum; 12.3 million in circulation: supply scale 9.5, cap 0 |
| Durability: five years or more with no halt, freeze or reversal | ✗ | 3 full years since its first recorded price, one halt, freeze or reversal in five years |
| Fungibility: every unit interchangeable, none the protocol can freeze or set apart | ✗ | an authority can freeze funds: In 2025 the team's audit hard forks froze all ordinary transfers for about 11 weeks and invalidated any coins their holders did not audit in time. |
| Divisibility: the smallest unit worth a cent or less | ✓ | 12 decimal places, the smallest unit worth $2.4e-13 |
| Portability: fees of a cent or less and capacity for real demand | ✗ | typical fee $0.00017; about 2 transactions a second (0 on the throughput scale; 5 is the busiest networks' median demand) |
| Verifiability: open-source nodes and checking without a trusted server | ✓ | node software open source; pruned nodes validate everything |
| Privacy (5 checks) | 10 | 5 of 5 passed source |
| Whitepaper privacy: keys are not tied to an identity | ✓ | Wallet keys are generated locally and transfers are validated by ring signatures, with no identity condition. |
| UTXO ledger: a new key for each payment, no account linking every coin | ✓ | |
| Network-level privacy: the node hides where a transaction came from (Dandelion++, Tor or I2P, on by default) | ✓ | Monero-derived node relays its transactions with Dandelion++ by default (cryptonote_protocol/levin_notify.cpp). |
| Hidden amounts (confidential transactions, RingCT, shielded pools, Mimblewimble) | ✓ | RingCT hides amounts, inherited from Monero at launch (2023). |
| Hidden sender and receiver (ring signatures or zero-knowledge proofs, one-time or stealth addresses) | ✓ | Ring signatures hide the sender and one-time stealth addresses the receiver. |
| Scalability (fees, throughput, block time, block space, features) | 5.3 | average of 5 parts source |
| Fees ($0.001 or less 10, $1 or more 0) | 10 | typical fee $0.00017 |
| Throughput (2,478 a second, the busiest network's peak day, 10; 119, the median of the ten busiest, 5) | 0 | about 2.2 simple transactions a second |
| Block time (10 minutes 10, less either side) | 7.5 | a block every 2 minutes |
| Block space per 10 minutes (32 MB or more 10) | 5.9 | 0.6 MB limit, 3.03 MB per 10 minutes |
| Features (3 checks) | 3.3 | 1 of 3 passed |
| Payments safe to accept within seconds | ✗ | Two-minute probabilistic PoW blocks with a Monero-style spend lock; no protected zero-confirmation. |
| Pruned nodes: a full node can validate and drop old history | ✓ | Monero-derived --prune-blockchain discards most old ring-signature data while keeping what validation needs. |
| Light clients verify payments from headers or proofs, without a trusted server | ✗ | No SPV-style light client; wallets trust a daemon. |
| Security (miner pay and 7 checks) | 2.6 | 2 of 7 points, 2 not yet measured source |
| Miners paid a day ($1,000 0, $10 million or more 10), 2 points | 0 | about $659 a day |
| Its own hashrate: at least half its algorithm's largest, not merge-mined | ✗ | |
| Largest pool or validator under 50% | – | |
| Largest three under 75% | – | |
| More than one maintained client | ✗ | 1 |
| Node software is open source | ✓ | The Zephyr Protocol team maintains the only node in the ZephyrProtocol/zephyr repository and decides hard forks, including the 2025 audit forks. |
| Real on-chain use: 1,000+ transactions a day | ✗ | about 576 a day |
| No 51% attack or deep reorganisation in five years | ✓ | |
| Programmability (tokens, contracts, 5 checks) | 1.1 | 1 of 9 points source |
| Token issuance | 0 | No token issuance on the chain itself |
| Smart contracts | 0 | Monero-derived chain with fixed transaction types (transfers and reserve-asset conversions); no script or VM. |
| Multisig and time locks | ✓ | Monero-style m-of-n multisig in its wallet code, and per-output unlock_time enforced by the consensus check is_tx_spendtime_unlocked. |
| Atomic swaps with other chains | ✗ | No hash locks, and no working adaptor-signature swap implementation for ZEPH was found. |
| An exchange built into the protocol | ✗ | The protocol mints and redeems ZSD and ZRS against ZEPH at oracle and reserve-formula prices, a stablecoin mechanism rather than an order book or AMM. |
| Cross-chain messaging the chain verifies itself | ✗ | No cross-chain feature in the protocol. |
| Non-fungible tokens | ✗ | No user token or NFT type; only the protocol's own reserve assets. |
| Decentralisation | 6.3 | section average, 6 of 8 measured |
| Censorship resistant (Source) | 0 | An authority can halt the chain or freeze funds: In 2025 the team's audit hard forks froze all ordinary transfers for about 11 weeks and invalidated any coins their holders did not audit in time. source |
| No central team (Source) | 0 | A central team directs it: The Zephyr Protocol team maintains the only node in the ZephyrProtocol/zephyr repository and decides hard forks, including the 2025 audit forks. source |
| Who can mint (Source) | 10 | Proof of work: 10 of 10 on the ladder of who produces blocks |
| Nodes (Source) | — | Not yet counted |
| Holder concentration (Source) | — | Not yet measured |
| Premine (allocated at launch) | 9.6 | 4.1% of today's supply allocated at launch to founders, a company, a foundation or investors. The genesis block paid 500,000 ZEPH to the team: ≈4.1% of the ~12.27M current supply. source |
| Fundraising | 10 | No sale of the coin source |
| Developer share (after launch) | 8.2 | Developer share: about 17.8% of today's supply received so far; no share of new block rewards today. A one-off 1,921,650 ZEPH minted to a governance address at the V11 audit fork (block 536,000, June 2025) ≈15.7%, plus 5% of each block reward to a governance wallet until the V6 fork ≈2.1%: ≈17.8% of supply. source |
| Supply & Demand | 6.9 | group average |
| Supply & Demand (Source) | 4.3 | average of 6 measures |
| Exchanges (10 or more: 10) | 2 | 2 exchanges |
| Daily volume ($10K 0, $1B or more 10) | 1.7 | $68,143 traded in 24 hours; #1754 by volume on the exchanges the site reads (scored on the median day of the last 30, $70,098) |
| Turnover (volume ÷ market cap, 5% a day: 10) | 7.8 | 1.9% of its market cap a day, median of the last 30 days |
| Order-book depth (bids and asks within 2% ÷ market cap, 1%: 10) | 3.2 | $259 within 2% of the price on 1 exchange, 0.01% of its market cap, median of the last 2 days |
| Market cap ($1M 0, $10B or more 10) | 1.2 | $2.9M, 1.2 on a scale of 2.5 points per tenfold |
| Paper trading (futures, options and margin ÷ market cap, 0%: 10, 100%: 0) | 10 | no futures, options or margin on the exchanges read |
| Supply (smaller is better) | 9.5 | no fixed maximum; 12.3 million in circulation |
| Record | 6.3 | group average |
| Record (origin, claims, halts) | 9 | 2 positive, 1 negative source |
| Positive record | ||
| Launched with a stated purpose, not as a joke | ✓ | |
| No claims by its founders that contradict its own design | ✓ | |
| Negative record | ||
| Halt, freeze or reversal, 2025-03-31 | ✗ | Developer-issued hard fork v8 (block 481,500) disabled all regular transfers and conversions, allowing only 'audit' transactions; coins not audited before hard fork v9 were declared invalid, and normal function returned only with hard fork v11 at block 536,000 on 2025-06-15 (exchanges had suspended deposits at the team's request since Jan 2025). |
| Age (years since genesis) (Source) | 3 | 3 full years since 2023-07-05, the first day with a recorded price (genesis not yet researched, so the age can only be understated). |
| Development (work, improvements, unfixed issues) | 7 | 2 positive, 0 negative source |
| Positive | ||
| Steady work, 6 of 6 | ✓ | 0 commits in 0 of the last 12 months (github.com/ZephyrProtocol/zephyr); Zephyr v2.3.0 (Audit Completion), 11-16 Jun 2025; four releases in the last 24 months (v2.0.2 Jan 2025, v2.1.1 Apr 2025, v2.2.0 May 2025, v2.3.0 Jun 2025) but none in the 16 months since. |
| Shipped a security fix in two years, +1 | ✓ | Zephyr v2.0.2, Jan 2025: hard fork v7 'important security update' hotfix. |
Twenty criteria, weighted equally. The Cryptocurrency Standards have six sections: sound money qualities (six checks: scarcity, durability, fungibility, divisibility, portability, verifiability), privacy (five checks), scalability (four measures and three features), security (miner pay and seven checks), programmability (token issuance, smart contracts and five checks) and decentralisation (censorship resistance, no central team, who can mint, nodes, holders, premine, fundraising and developer share). Provisional: criteria marked — are not yet measured and are left out of the average. A rating of structure and market depth, not a price forecast or investment advice. How the grade is built · Highest-graded cryptocurrencies.
12,315,498 ZEPH are in circulation, against no fixed cap — issuance has no defined end.
| Premine (allocated at launch) | 4.1% of today's supply |
|---|---|
| Sold by the issuer or insiders | 0% of today's supply |
| Developer share received since launch | 17.8% of today's supply |
| Developer share of new coins today | 0% |
| Fundraising | No sale and no investor round |
The genesis block paid 500,000 ZEPH to the team: ≈4.1% of the ~12.27M current supply.
No VC or token sale found (described as grassroots with no VC funding).
A one-off 1,921,650 ZEPH minted to a governance address at the V11 audit fork (block 536,000, June 2025) ≈15.7%, plus 5% of each block reward to a governance wallet until the V6 fork ≈2.1%: ≈17.8% of supply.
The site has no label yet. Genesis premine and governance cut are clear in code. The 1.92M audit-fork mint is the swing factor: it followed a 2024 exploit and a 2025 chain audit that voided unaudited coins, and its purpose (likely a reserve for legitimate unaudited holders) was not confirmed. Without it the figure is 6.2%. The denominator is also uncertain, because ZEPH converted into reserve and stable assets moves in and out of supply; the explorer's cumulative coinbase is 13.18M.
Sources: github.com · github.com · github.com · github.com · x.com · explorer.zephyrprotocol.com. Researched 2026-10-24, high confidence.
Zephyr Protocol is secured by 29 MH/s of its own work. Hashrate does not compare across algorithms — a SHA-256 hash and a Scrypt hash cost different amounts to produce.
No SEC/CFTC determination — unclassified.
The regulator's position, reported as stated, not CoinSpectrum's. Assets nobody has ruled on are left unclassified rather than sorted by a guess.
Zephyr Protocol is #195 among cryptocurrencies and #1478 in the market ranking, which lists wrapped coins, staked derivatives, stablecoins and tokens alongside them. CoinSpectrum counts an asset once, and counts only cryptocurrencies: assets with their own blockchain and their own consensus. A wrapped coin, a staked derivative or a stablecoin is a claim on something already counted; a token, memecoin or otherwise, runs on another chain's blocks. All of them are listed, each in its own section, and none is added to the total. The 1283 places between Zephyr Protocol's two ranks are held by claims and tokens, not by other networks. The methodology sets out the rule and the counting rule argues for it.
The price above is the median of the exchanges the site reads live, checked every minute and cross-checked against a market snapshot (how market data is gathered). The grade is scored on published criteria, each with its source (the method). The site is independent, nothing on it is a paid placement, and its statements are signed (about CoinSpectrum, the manifesto).