Zcash (ZEC) Breaks Above $1,000, Climbs Into Top 10 by Market Cap

Zcash extended its rally on Friday, with ZEC topping out at $1,023, up 20% over the past 24 hours, according to CoinMarketCap. The move lifted Zcash's market capitalization to nearly $17 billion, placing it among the ten largest cryptoassets by market value. Momentum has been strong across longer time frames as well. ZEC is up about 94% over the past month and more than 2,300% over the past year, pushing the long-running privacy-focused token back into the market spotlight. Derivatives activity has also surged. ZEC futures open interest now stands at roughly 2.3 million ZEC, equivalent to about $2.3 billion at current prices. That amounts to around 14% of Zcash's total market cap, pointing to a sharp rise in leverage. Liquidations accelerated alongside the rally. In the last 24 hours, about $36.6 million in leveraged ZEC positions were wiped out, with shorts accounting for roughly $34.5 million, or about 94% of reported liquidations. Such imbalance is consistent with a short squeeze, where forced short covering requires buying spot or futures, adding fuel to the upswing. A regulatory-market catalyst has also emerged in the U.S. Grayscale has converted its long-standing Zcash Trust into a Zcash ETF. SEC filing documents confirmed the new name and structure in late August. The ETF trades under the ticker ZCSH, giving investors regulated broker-dealer access to ZEC exposure. Earlier updates to Grayscale's ETF filing indicated plans to list on NYSE Arca and cited a 2.5% management fee. The changes have been widely viewed as a key driver behind the current rally. The rebound is drawing extra attention after a steep decline earlier this year. ZEC fell more than 30% following disclosure of a vulnerability in the Orchard shielded pool. The development team subsequently implemented a fix and deployed the Ironwood security upgrade. Even with prices surging, traders are monitoring leverage-driven volatility risk. With about $2.3 billion in futures positioning concentrated in an asset with a market cap near $17 billion, an abrupt reversal could quickly intensify liquidation pressure. Grayscale also outlined a long-term scenario analysis: if Zcash's market capitalization were to reach 10% of Bitcoin's in the future, ZEC's theoretical price could approach $8,100. The firm framed this as a hypothetical scenario rather than a price forecast.