The privacy-focused cryptocurrency Zcash re-entered the top 20 largest coins on Friday. The project’s market capitalization reached $10.9 billion, enough to overtake Hyperliquid with $10.8 billion.
Despite the overall market decline, Zcash is moving against the trend. In the past 24 hours, the token has jumped by more than 25%, continuing a rally that has brought a 750% increase since October.
On October 1, ZEC was trading at around $75, staying in the $20–80 range for most of the past three years. But after a sharp surge of interest in the project, by October 10 the price broke through $200 for the first time since 2022, despite the largest liquidations in crypto market history. At the time of writing, the token had already reached $680.
This is the highest since early 2018, although it is still far from the all-time high recorded by CoinGecko above $3000 in October 2016. At that time, the supply of ZEC was limited, and the initial trading heavily distorted the price.
ZEC price dynamics. Source: TradingView
Most cryptocurrencies are under pressure during this period. Since October 10, Bitcoin has fallen by about 18%, ETH — by 26%, and the GMCI 30 index, which tracks the largest 30 digital assets, dropped by 25%. At the same time, smaller tokens are showing even worse results.
BTC and ETH price dynamics. Source: The Block
‘Encrypted Bitcoin’
The growth of Zcash is fueled by several factors at once. Project supporters link the surge of interest both to new debates about financial surveillance in Europe and to increased attention to Zcash mobile wallets and rising trading volumes across the industry.
Zcash is a blockchain with privacy features. Users can transfer tokens to a private pool, effectively ‘hiding’ the transaction history. The so-called ‘private supply’ refers to ZEC tokens held at shielded addresses using zero-knowledge proofs (zk-SNARKs). This system allows transactions to be verified without revealing the sender, recipient, or amount.
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Analysts Brandon Kae and Ivan Wu note that the sharp increase in the volume of shielded coins indicates growing trust in Zcash functionality and improved technical support. This was made possible by a new wave of interest in anonymous cryptocurrencies and active community participation.
Moreover, the very fact of a steady increase in ‘shielded supply’ is an important signal of real usage. To hide tokens, a user must consciously choose this function. This is different from simply storing coins on an exchange or in a regular wallet, analysts emphasized.
Growth of shielded Zcash tokens since the end of 2024. Source: ZECHUB
Meanwhile, senior analyst Nansen Jake Kennis believes that the current eight-year high of Zcash is driven by several key factors at once.
‘Privacy is increasingly seen not as an additional feature, but as a basic necessity. This brings back the ideological demand for anonymous and independent transactions. On the technical side, Zcash benefits from its zero-knowledge architecture, integration with Solana, and the Zashi mobile wallet, which supports private transfers. Combined with a bitcoin-like model, a limited supply of 21 million, Proof-of-Work consensus, and the upcoming halving, the project can truly be called encrypted bitcoin,’ Kennis said.
According to analyst CryptoQuant Maartunn, market activity also confirms the surge of interest: both spot and futures volumes are growing.
‘This shows that both investors and traders are massively entering private coins,’ he noted.
Zcash spot CVD. Source: CryptoQuant
However, Kennis from Nansen warns that ‘at this stage, there is already more speculation than technology around Zcash.’ In the past three months, the price has risen by more than 1486%.
‘The funding rate is now extremely negative, and traders who were shorting have already been liquidated more than once,’ he added.
ZEC became the second largest liquid position in Arthur Hayes’ Maelstrom portfolio
The rapid price growth of Zcash has once again attracted the attention of big names in the industry. As Jake Kennis notes, interest in the project has returned from former BitMEX CEO Arthur Hayes, bringing in new capital after several years of stagnation.
Hayes, who is now the co-founder and investment director of the family office Maelstrom, stated on Friday that ZEC became the second largest liquid position in the Maelstrom portfolio after bitcoin. This raised concerns among some market participants: is such hype a sign of a possible peak?
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Earlier the same day, Hayes said that private Zcash transactions could become the basis for a new wave of ‘real decentralized exchanges,’ and suggested that the token price could reach $1000.
