Zcash surged almost 30% to $788 on Saturday, extending its seven-day advance above 60% and taking ZEC to more than three times the sub-$250 levels reached during the April market selloff. The
Zcash surged almost 30% to $788 on Saturday, extending its seven-day advance above 60% and taking ZEC to more than three times the sub-$250 levels reached during the April market selloff.
The privacy-focused cryptocurrency traded as high as $848.65 over the past 24 hours, while trading volume jumped 263% to $2.52 billion. Its market capitalization climbed to roughly $13.3 billion, pushing Zcash to No. 11 among cryptocurrencies by market value.
Fresh institutional interest has landed directly on ZEC. Grayscale’s fourth amended registration statement, filed August 18, keeps the Grayscale Zcash Trust moving toward an NYSE Arca listing under the ticker ZCSH.
The filing also discloses nonbinding talks with DCG International Investments for a potential contribution of approximately 200,000 ZEC in exchange for trust shares once the registration becomes effective. That amount represents close to 1.2% of Zcash’s current circulating supply.
ZEC had already shown similar strength earlier this year when a 36% rally pushed the token to a fresh 2026 high near $600. The latest move has now cleared that entire May trading range.
Another institutional catalyst arrived the same day as Grayscale’s filing. Cypherpunk Technologies launched 4.2 GSol/s of Zcash mining capacity through a $33.33 million transaction with Winklevoss Capital.
The company estimates that its new fleet controls roughly 18% of the Zcash network’s total hashrate, creating one of the largest publicly disclosed corporate exposures to ZEC mining.
That investment follows months of renewed interest around Zcash’s privacy architecture. The debate intensified in May as ZEC returned to the center of the crypto privacy trade, with institutional products and shielded transactions receiving fresh attention.
Zcash also entered the breakout with a major network upgrade behind it. Ironwood NU6.3 activated on July 28, introducing a new shielded pool and completing the network’s response to the Orchard soundness vulnerability.
The upgrade followed an earlier coordinated fix that restored Orchard after the critical shielded-pool flaw, removing a security overhang that had followed Zcash into the summer.
Broader market conditions have amplified the move. Bitcoin surged through $74,000 as more than $3 billion in crypto shorts were liquidated, while Ethereum and large-cap altcoins pushed higher alongside it.
ZEC reached $848.65 during Saturday’s session, its strongest level of 2026, after trading below $250 in early April.
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