#ZEC大涨23%领涨PayFi板块 Up 2300% in one year, ZEC storms back into the mainstream spotlight
The most astonishing aspect of this Zcash rally is that it is not simply following Bitcoin higher.
In early September, CoinDesk data showed that ZEC had risen approximately 94% over the past 30 days, with its one-year gain exceeding 2300%.
During the September 16–17 trading session, CoinCodex data showed that ZEC reached a high of approximately $1,357, closed at around $1,333, and had a market capitalization of approximately $20.57 billion.
Such a gain is already extremely rare among large crypto assets. More importantly, while Bitcoin's performance over the same period was not particularly strong, ZEC still staged a rally that was clearly independent of the broader market.
This means the market is no longer trading merely on the theme of “the crypto market rising overall.”
Capital has begun trading a logic unique to Zcash.
And the most important variable in that logic is the ETF.
The ETF has arrived, and ZEC has opened a traditional capital gateway for the first time
On August 25, Grayscale's The Zcash ETF began trading on NYSE Arca under the ticker ZCSH.
Strictly speaking, ZCSH is an exchange-traded product, not a traditional ETF registered under the U.S. Investment Company Act of 1940.
But for ordinary traditional investors, the result is quite direct: previously, buying ZEC required entering a crypto trading platform, purchasing the token, and managing wallets and private keys.
Now, through a regular brokerage account, investors can directly gain exposure to ZEC's price.
This step may appear simple, but its significance is substantial. For a long time, privacy coins did not lack a story; rather, it was extremely difficult for traditional capital to enter.
The emergence of ETFs/ETPs is effectively opening a new capital gateway directly for ZEC.
Capital quickly responded.
Grayscale disclosed that during the first 11 trading days after ZCSH's listing, cumulative inflows totaled approximately $179 million, while assets under management at one point approached $700 million.
As of September 8, Grayscale's official data showed that ZCSH held approximately 464,500 ZEC, with AUM of approximately $533 million.
As ZEC's price continued to rise and capital inflows persisted, the product's size expanded further.
This is also one of the biggest differences between this rally and those of the past. Previously, ZEC trading relied more on capital from within the crypto community. Now, incremental capital from traditional financial accounts is beginning to emerge.
And spot products ultimately need to hold the corresponding asset.
If capital continues to flow in, it should theoretically continue creating spot demand.
Therefore, the ETF brings more than just a “bullish piece of news.” It is changing ZEC's capital structure.

“Why Zcash in particular?”
“Bitcoin with privacy” has been brought back into the market spotlight
The ETF solves the question of “where the money comes from.”
But why is the money willing to buy ZEC?
One answer is that the market has begun trading “privacy” again. Zcash and Bitcoin share many natural similarities. Both use PoW.
Both have a maximum supply of 21 million coins. Both also have halving mechanisms.
After the November 2024 halving, Zcash's block reward fell from 3.125 ZEC to 1.5625 ZEC, reducing the rate of new issuance by approximately half.
This has prompted the market to repackage a story that is not particularly new: if Bitcoin represents an open, transparent, and traceable digitally scarce asset, then Zcash offers “selective privacy” built on a similar scarcity structure.
A few years ago, the market might not have been willing to buy into this narrative. But now, the environment is changing.
AI Agents, on-chain tracking, address analysis, fund profiling, and financial data monitoring capabilities are becoming increasingly powerful.
In the past, many people viewed “on-chain transparency” as an advantage.
But as everyone's fund flows, changes in holdings, and even trading behavior can be continuously analyzed, financial privacy itself is once again beginning to regain value.
Thus, an old narrative has been repackaged as a new theme. Privacy is no longer merely about “hiding transactions”; it is increasingly being described as an asset attribute in the era of digital finance.
Zcash has consequently become one of the biggest beneficiaries of this round of privacy-coin revaluation.
But another invisible hand is behind this rally: short liquidations
Looking only at the ETF and privacy narratives, it is easy to reach a conclusion:
ZEC's rally is entirely driven by fundamentals. But the reality is not that simple. Leverage has also clearly amplified the move.
On September 4, as ZEC broke through $1,000, approximately $36.6 million in related leveraged positions were liquidated. Of that amount, approximately $34.5 million came from short positions.
In other words, this rally involved a clear short squeeze. The logic is not complicated. Prices rise, and shorts lose money.
As losses expand, some positions are forcibly closed. Closing short positions essentially requires buying ZEC. The market therefore forms a positive feedback loop:
Rising prices → short liquidations → forced buying → prices continue rising → more short liquidations.
The most dangerous aspect of this type of market is that the speed of the rise can far exceed the pace of fundamental change. The higher the price rises, the more momentum capital enters. The more momentum capital enters, the more pressure short sellers face.
The more pressure short sellers face, the easier it is for the price to continue surging. That is, until the cycle suddenly stops at some point.
ETFs, privacy, scarcity, and short squeezes are simultaneously driving ZEC
Therefore, ZEC can no longer be simply understood as “a privacy coin going up.”
There are actually four variables operating behind it at the same time.
First, the ETF has opened a new gateway for incremental capital.
Second, the privacy narrative has once again become a market focus.
Third, the 21 million supply cap and halving mechanism have strengthened expectations of scarcity.
Fourth, high leverage and short liquidations have amplified the upside elasticity.
The combination of these four forces ultimately produced the astonishing gain of more than 2300% over the past year. But this is also where the problem lies. The more complex the forces driving prices higher, the greater the volatility may be afterward.

The real questions only begin after a 2300% rally
What the market really needs to watch now is not whether ZEC can continue rising tomorrow. It is how much of this rally comes from long-term capital and how much from short-term trading.
Some recent market views have pointed out that growth in privacy usage on the Zcash blockchain has not fully kept pace with the rise in the token's price.
In other words, after the price surged from several hundred dollars to $1,000 or even $1,300, the forces driving the rally may increasingly come from ETF capital, market narratives, and trading momentum rather than a simultaneous explosion in actual usage demand. This creates a crucial dividing line.
If ZCSH can continue to receive stable net inflows, with spot demand constantly increasing and the privacy sector continuing to attract capital, ZEC's repricing logic may remain intact. But if ETF inflows begin to slow while open interest and leverage continue rising, the short-squeeze mechanism that previously drove prices higher could also become an accelerator of the decline.
When prices rise, shorts get liquidated. When prices fall, longs can be liquidated too. Leverage is never one-directional.
What Zcash truly needs to prove is not its price, but how long this capital will stay
After gaining more than 2300% in one year, ZEC is no longer simply a “privacy coin trade.” It is becoming a highly representative market example: how a long-dormant asset can be repriced through new capital access, new narrative packaging, and a new trading structure.
The ETF provided access for traditional capital.
Privacy supplied a renewed narrative.
The 21 million supply cap provided the imagination of scarcity.
Short liquidations rapidly amplified all of this over a short period.
So what is most worth watching next is not whether ZEC can rise another 20% or 30%. It is whether—after the short squeeze ends, sentiment cools, and the market returns to fundamentals—the capital that entered Zcash through ETFs and the secondary market will actually be willing to stay. That will truly determine whether this round of ZEC is the beginning of a long-term revaluation or simply another super-volatile rally jointly driven higher by capital, narratives, and leverage.$ZEC