Zcash jumped more than 22% to touch $855 on Saturday, its highest level since 2018, extending a weeklong rally that gained a further leg after Grayscale's latest push to convert its Zcash trust into a spot ETF. Futures volume topped $9.5 billion in 24 hours, and the token has more than tripled since its June selloff over a network vulnerability.
Zcash jumped more than 22% over 24 hours to approximately $818.77 as of 1:00 p.m. EDT Saturday, briefly touching $855 during the session — its highest level since 2018. The privacy-focused token's market capitalization reached about $13.8 billion, ranking it the 12th-largest cryptocurrency.
Grayscale's ETF filing extends an already-running rally
The rally was already underway before Grayscale submitted its fifth amended registration statement on Friday, after ZEC had gained more than 30% for the week as bitcoin and other large cryptocurrencies advanced. ZEC's latest leg higher followed Grayscale's filing, which proposed renaming the existing Grayscale Zcash Trust "The Zcash ETF" and set an annual sponsor fee of 2.5%. If approved, the fund would become the first U.S. ETF to directly track ZEC's price, following similar launches for Solana, XRP, Litecoin, Doge, BNB and Hyperliquid.
Not all of those altcoin funds have drawn heavy demand, however. XRP ETFs took in $40 million in net inflows over the past week and Solana ETFs $28 million, while Bitcoin funds gathered nearly $2 billion over the same period, according to SoSoValue data. Grayscale's previous amendment also disclosed that a Digital Currency Group subsidiary is considering acquiring 200,000 ZEC, worth about $164 million at current prices, though the discussions remain nonbinding.
Derivatives dominate the trading
The surge came with heavy derivatives activity. ZEC futures volume topped $9.5 billion over 24 hours, Coinglass data show, compared with just $1.06 billion in volume on spot exchanges. Open interest stood at $1.8 billion, equivalent to about 13% of ZEC's market cap.
A sharp turnaround since June
The rally marks a sharp reversal from June, when ZEC fell as much as 60% from approximately $630 to $250 after developers disclosed a critical counterfeiting vulnerability in the network's Orchard shielded pool. Developers later patched the flaw and reactivated Orchard through the NU6.2 network upgrade.
At Saturday's peak, ZEC had more than tripled from that June low and traded about 35% above its level before the selloff. Even so, the token remains roughly 75% below its all-time high of $3,191.93.
Source: The Block
Trading involves risk.
Risk Disclaimer
