Zcash jumps 48% past $800 as Grayscale ETF filing revives “next Bitcoin” talk
Zcash, a cryptocurrency built around financial privacy, broke above $800 on Saturday. The move had three obvious ingredients: speculation, aggressive futures activity. Grayscale’s spot ETF filing added the spark.
Zcash rose 48% on Saturday, reaching its highest price since 2018. The coin cleared $800, and suddenly the “next Bitcoin” comparison was back. Futures traders moved billions of dollars. Grayscale’s filing gave buyers one more reason to chase. My read: approval remains far from certain, but privacy coins are back on traders’ radar.
Zcash still resembles Bitcoin’s original design in several important ways. Supply is capped at 21 million. Mining uses proof-of-work. The project also follows a halving schedule. Shielded transactions hide transaction details. CoinDesk Research has cited the Tachyon upgrade and Zcash’s work on quantum resistance in its assessment of the project’s technology.
Saturday’s rally carried Zcash above its January 2018 peak near $800. That price had been the coin’s high for eight years. It also moved past the $750 level reached last November. Within 24 hours, Zcash traded between $589 and $851, a swing of roughly 45%. It works. That is an enormous range for one day.
Why did traders focus on Grayscale? Because DCG, the crypto group that owns Grayscale, is behind the filing. On August 18, Grayscale submitted its fourth amendment, seeking to convert its Zcash Trust into a spot exchange-traded fund on NYSE Arca. The proposed ticker is ZCSH.
The amendment keeps the application active. It does not mean the ETF has been approved. The SEC still has to review it. Most market commentary treats the filing as a bullish signal. That’s only half right. Traders appear to be betting early on the possibility, much as they did with spot Bitcoin ETF filings earlier this year. BTC gained more than 15% in the weeks before the initial filings.
The filing also disclosed that DCG International Investments, another DCG subsidiary, is in non-binding talks to buy about 200,000 ZEC through the trust. At Saturday’s price, the deal would be worth around $163 million. The purchase has not happened. Still, the proposed size was difficult for the market to ignore. I’ll be honest: that is not a footnote-sized number.
The obvious comparison is MicroStrategy’s Bitcoin buying. Its announcements often pushed BTC higher, sometimes by more than 10% in a single day. Counter to the usual shortcut, that does not mean Zcash will follow the same route. It does explain why traders are treating the DCG talks as a serious market event.
The futures market adds a second layer of risk. Zcash futures volume reached about $4.55 billion on Friday, compared with roughly $553 million in spot trading. Open interest was close to $1.35 billion. Over the next 24 hours, total volume came to $2.24 billion, equal to about 16% of Zcash’s market value.
Leverage can lift a rally. Then it can turn the reversal ugly. We tried this logic on enough crypto charts to know the pattern is not subtle. Zcash has already shown how quickly it can happen. In June, the coin sold off sharply after researchers found a vulnerability in its Orchard shielded pool, which handles private transactions. Crypto traders saw a similar dynamic during the May 2021 crash, when Bitcoin fell from $58,000 to $30,000 over several weeks.
Zcash now ranks 12th among cryptocurrencies by market value, at $13.87 billion. It is also the largest privacy-focused token by that measure. For now, Zcash has a clear lead in a small market segment. My take: that lead is useful, but fragile. Prices can erase it quickly.
What this means
The rally suggests interest in privacy coins may be returning. Zcash has two features traders tend to notice: a technical project with years behind it and a large financial firm pursuing an ETF. That combination is unusual enough to attract attention.
Grayscale’s filing matters even without SEC approval. Investment firms are trying to package more crypto assets for public markets, not just Bitcoin and Ethereum. If ZCSH moves forward, other altcoins may receive similar ETF proposals. New money could follow. So could sharper short-term speculation. Yes, this is more complicated than “ETF filing equals durable demand.”
Traders will want to follow the filing and the DCG talks. They should also watch the less exciting numbers, especially futures open interest and funding rates. If those climb too quickly, the rally may be relying more on leverage than on new spot demand. Skip this step.
Is that overkill? For a 50-page site, maybe. For a token that moved between $589 and $851 in 24 hours, no. The next major event is the SEC’s review of the ZCSH application. An update or another amendment could move the price. Traders will also be watching the $850 area and whether Zcash can stay above its old high near $800.
Broader market conditions could still derail the rally. A more hawkish Federal Reserve or renewed inflation fears would probably pressure risky assets, including altcoins. Zcash has its own catalyst right now. It is still trading in the same market as everything else. That matters.