$ZEC is up roughly 2,496% in a year and touched $1,693 on Sept 26. Zcash at four figures was a joke twelve months ago.
Two things drove it. First, the Grayscale trust became a NYSE Arca ETF (ZCSH) on Aug 24, holding about 444,608 ZEC (~$463M) as of Sept 4. Second, the SEC closed its multi-year Zcash Foundation investigation in January with no enforcement action.
Notice the irony: the coin sold on financial privacy is now being bought through one of the most regulated, most documented wrappers in finance. The ETF buyer needs a brokerage account and KYC. The privacy is in the asset, not in the buyer.
That's not a knock, it's the mechanism. Institutional access ran the price, and it also means the marginal buyer is now a fund allocator, not a cypherpunk. Funds rotate. A story that lifts a coin about 26x ("AI surveillance fear," "privacy is the trade of the year") is usually priced in by the time it hits every trending list.
A run this steep is also leverage-fueled. On Sept 4, when ZEC hit $1,000, short sellers lost $34M in a single squeeze. Squeezes end when the shorts are gone, not when the fundamentals arrive.
ZEC is down about 6% today and is still among the most-searched coins on Binance Square. Is it a new asset class, or the year's most crowded trade?
#Zcash #PrivacyCoins
Two things drove it. First, the Grayscale trust became a NYSE Arca ETF (ZCSH) on Aug 24, holding about 444,608 ZEC (~$463M) as of Sept 4. Second, the SEC closed its multi-year Zcash Foundation investigation in January with no enforcement action.
Notice the irony: the coin sold on financial privacy is now being bought through one of the most regulated, most documented wrappers in finance. The ETF buyer needs a brokerage account and KYC. The privacy is in the asset, not in the buyer.
That's not a knock, it's the mechanism. Institutional access ran the price, and it also means the marginal buyer is now a fund allocator, not a cypherpunk. Funds rotate. A story that lifts a coin about 26x ("AI surveillance fear," "privacy is the trade of the year") is usually priced in by the time it hits every trending list.
A run this steep is also leverage-fueled. On Sept 4, when ZEC hit $1,000, short sellers lost $34M in a single squeeze. Squeezes end when the shorts are gone, not when the fundamentals arrive.
ZEC is down about 6% today and is still among the most-searched coins on Binance Square. Is it a new asset class, or the year's most crowded trade?
#Zcash #PrivacyCoins
