Crypto
Zcash Vaults Past $1,000 on ETF Demand and a Wave of Private Transactions
Privacy money just enjoyed its biggest week in years. Zcash blasted through $1,000 on September 4, trading as high as about $1,023 after starting the day near $828, a 20% single day move that capped one of the strongest runs in the market. The token has climbed roughly 170% over the past month and more than 2,000% over the past year, and even after Friday's pullback to around $1,087, it holds a monthly gain of about 125%.
The breakout caught the crowd leaning the wrong way. About $36.6 million in leveraged ZEC positions were liquidated during the surge, with $34.5 million coming from short sellers, and each forced buy added fuel as bearish traders covered. Futures open interest climbed toward the equivalent of $2.3 billion in ZEC, evidence that serious capital is circling the privacy coin.
Real adoption sits behind the price action. Grayscale's spot Zcash ETF, trading on NYSE Arca under the ticker ZCSH since August 25, gives ordinary brokerage accounts their first simple route into the privacy coin. The fund crossed $500 million in assets within two weeks of listing, accumulating more than 550,000 ZEC, about 3% of the 16.9 million tokens in circulation. Demand for the privacy feature itself keeps climbing too: the shielded supply has grown to 4.86 million ZEC, nearly 29% of total supply, with 3.86 million of those sitting in the audited Ironwood pool.
Builders keep shipping alongside the rally. The Vizor wallet recently signed a shielded transaction directly on a Ledger hardware wallet, a milestone toward full private transaction support on mainstream hardware. Coinholder voting on the NU7 network upgrade runs through a September 14 deadline, and the next halving arrives in November 2028, further tightening a 21 million supply cap modeled on Bitcoin's own scarcity design. About 80% of all ZEC that will ever exist already circulates.
For readers who believe money should be as private as a conversation, the takeaway is electric: a coin that traded far lower in 2022 now holds four figures with institutional plumbing, rising shielded usage, and a community still upgrading the protocol. Financial privacy is having its moment, and Zcash is leading the parade.
Sources
- CoinDesk: ZEC jumps 20% to the landmark $1,000 level
- TradingView: Zcash hits $1,000, next steps for the privacy coin
- FXStreet: Zcash rally above $1,000 on growing shielded demand
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