The cryptocurrency market is once again showing strength, and this time the spotlight is on Zcash (ZEC). On September 4, the asset's price briefly surpassed the psychologically important mark of $1000, thereby updating its all-time high that had held since 2018. Over the course of a day, the privacy-focused coin rose by approximately 20.75%, an impressive result even for the volatile digital market.
At the time of data recording, ZEC is trading around $1002. The asset's market capitalization is estimated at $16.9 billion, allowing it to occupy the tenth spot in the ranking of the largest cryptocurrencies. This surge looks particularly telling against the backdrop of the overall market recovery: Bitcoin tested the $82,000 level, while Ethereum firmly established itself above $2500. However, it is Zcash that became the growth leader in its segment, outpacing other privacy coins, whose aggregate figure increased by 15.02% over the day.
Derivatives and institutional interest
Particular attention deserves the activity in the derivatives market. The daily trading volume of ZEC futures exceeded $8 billion, which is more than ten times higher than spot figures ($694 million). Open interest reached $2.3 billion — a clear signal that large players are betting on further movement of the asset.
The key catalyst for the latest phase of the rally was the launch of an exchange-traded product by Grayscale. On August 25, The Zcash ETF under the ticker ZCSH began trading on NYSE Arca. This is the first listed product in the US dedicated exclusively to Zcash, and the world's first ETP with spot exposure to ZEC. As of September 3, the fund's assets amounted to $414.7 million, with the fund itself holding 428,613 ZEC. Notably, ZCSH emerged from the conversion of a trust that had existed since 2017, so a significant portion of the assets was in the product before it even hit the exchange.
Privacy as the new mainstream
Grayscale analysts simultaneously strengthened the investment thesis around privacy, linking the development of artificial intelligence to growing demand for financial data protection. Their argumentation is simple and compelling: AI can reduce the cost and scale up the matching of public blockchain addresses with external information, making Zcash's private transaction features even more in demand. "Privacy is not a niche feature of money, but part of what makes it work," the company's research emphasizes.
The network's technical indicators also confirm growing interest. According to ZecStats, approximately 4.86 million ZEC is held in four shielded pools — this is 28.8% of the total issued supply. Over the past seven days, the net inflow into shielded pools amounted to about 57,000 ZEC, indicating real use of private transactions rather than just speculative interest.
Recent infrastructure improvements are also worth noting. The Zakura team introduced a set of libraries that reduce the preparation time of a private transaction from more than three seconds to less than 200 ms in certain scenarios. This is a critically important step for scaling the technology.
However, Zcash has also had its dark period. On June 5, the coin's price crashed by 48% — to $302.48 — following the disclosure of information about a previously patched critical vulnerability in the shielded Orchard pool. The flaw theoretically allowed for the unnoticed creation of an unlimited number of coins. After an emergency fix on July 28, developers activated the Ironwood update, which launched a new shielded pool and a turnstile mechanism to verify the integrity of the supply.
An additional positive signal was the announcement by Cypherpunk Technologies about launching a mining division that will mine Zcash on equipment with a capacity of about 4.2 GSol/s — this is approximately 18% of the network's hash rate.
My comment: Breaking the $1000 mark is not just a speculative surge, but the result of the synergy of institutional adoption through the ETF and the growing recognition of the value of privacy in the age of AI. However, investors should remember the asset's volatility and events like the June vulnerability incident. Zcash's long-term success will depend on the team's ability to maintain trust in the shielded infrastructure and scale the technology without compromising security.