ZEC surged sharply—has it been overvalued? What potential does this coin have in the future? What funds are pushing it higher?
$ZEC The rise is mainly driven by ETFs + short-squeeze + a privacy narrative layered on top; in the short term it’s overheated, and long term depends on whether real privacy needs can truly be fulfilled.
From the 2024 low of about $16, it has increased more than 60x; over the past year, about 20x or more; over the last 30 days, roughly about doubled.
Its all-time high was around $3,192 in October 2016.
Short term: relatively high
Total supply is capped at 21 million; circulating supply is about 16.92 million (around 80%).
If ZEC’s market cap reached 2% of BTC’s, that would be $1,622. This is an assumption, not a prediction.
The shielded pool holds about 4.88 million coins—much higher than the 8% in August 2024—which suggests people are truly using the privacy function, not just trading/speculating.
Wang Chun, co-founder of F2Pool, publicly said it’s a narrative-driven market: a market cap nearing Sol doesn’t mean the same level of real usage; in the first four years there were reward-allocation issues, and privacy was optional rather than the default.
There’s a lot of leverage in the rally: futures open interest at one point exceeded $2 billion, and daily short liquidations reached tens of millions of dollars.
ZEC can get a U.S. listed ETF because it’s more auditable than XMR—more optionally transparent.
Conclusion: it’s undervalued compared to a few months ago; compared with the pace and leverage of the past two weeks, it’s likely to pull back in the short term.
There are only three core variables: regulation, whether institutions keep buying, and whether users truly put money into shielded addresses.
Favorable factors:
The U.S. has seen the first spot privacy-coin ETF; Monero is unlikely to replicate that path.
When AI and capital controls intensify, privacy as a theme will be priced repeatedly.
After wallets default to shielded addresses and standardized addresses reduce the usage barrier, the share of shielded transactions once reached a very high level.
Public company Cypherpunk has treated ZEC as a reserve asset, aiming to obtain about 5% of the supply.
Main risks
Policy shift: ETFs restricted, and privacy transactions treated as money laundering.
Technical governance: if another issue arises around supply integrity, the market will reprice.
Optional privacy vs default privacy: people who truly want strong privacy may still go to Monero.
Pre-shredded into the halving: the 2028 halving is still far away, and there will be big volatility in between.
$ZEC The rise is mainly driven by ETFs + short-squeeze + a privacy narrative layered on top; in the short term it’s overheated, and long term depends on whether real privacy needs can truly be fulfilled.
From the 2024 low of about $16, it has increased more than 60x; over the past year, about 20x or more; over the last 30 days, roughly about doubled.
Its all-time high was around $3,192 in October 2016.
Short term: relatively high
Total supply is capped at 21 million; circulating supply is about 16.92 million (around 80%).
If ZEC’s market cap reached 2% of BTC’s, that would be $1,622. This is an assumption, not a prediction.
The shielded pool holds about 4.88 million coins—much higher than the 8% in August 2024—which suggests people are truly using the privacy function, not just trading/speculating.
Wang Chun, co-founder of F2Pool, publicly said it’s a narrative-driven market: a market cap nearing Sol doesn’t mean the same level of real usage; in the first four years there were reward-allocation issues, and privacy was optional rather than the default.
There’s a lot of leverage in the rally: futures open interest at one point exceeded $2 billion, and daily short liquidations reached tens of millions of dollars.
ZEC can get a U.S. listed ETF because it’s more auditable than XMR—more optionally transparent.
Conclusion: it’s undervalued compared to a few months ago; compared with the pace and leverage of the past two weeks, it’s likely to pull back in the short term.
There are only three core variables: regulation, whether institutions keep buying, and whether users truly put money into shielded addresses.
Favorable factors:
The U.S. has seen the first spot privacy-coin ETF; Monero is unlikely to replicate that path.
When AI and capital controls intensify, privacy as a theme will be priced repeatedly.
After wallets default to shielded addresses and standardized addresses reduce the usage barrier, the share of shielded transactions once reached a very high level.
Public company Cypherpunk has treated ZEC as a reserve asset, aiming to obtain about 5% of the supply.
Main risks
Policy shift: ETFs restricted, and privacy transactions treated as money laundering.
Technical governance: if another issue arises around supply integrity, the market will reprice.
Optional privacy vs default privacy: people who truly want strong privacy may still go to Monero.
Pre-shredded into the halving: the 2028 halving is still far away, and there will be big volatility in between.