Zcash's ZEC token has reached its highest price in eight years, surging 47% to $865 after Grayscale filed to convert its Zcash Trust into a U.S. spot ZEC ETF. The level marks the highest for the privacy token since January 2018 and caps a recovery of roughly 3.4 times from its June low near $250. Grayscale's filing accelerated the rally and pushed ZEC above $800, yet Santiment Intelligence reported that social activity around the token remained far below June levels despite the rapid climb from its recent low.

ZEC Reaches Highest Price Since 2018

Zcash, launched in 2016, is built on zero-knowledge proofs that let users shield sender, recipient and amount data on its blockchain, the design that defines it as a privacy token. ZEC reached $865, a level last seen in January 2018, and has now gained about 3.4 times from its June low near $250. The token traded around $362 on June 6 before rising to roughly $796 by August 21, a gain of about 120%, with most of the move occurring within four days as ZEC climbed from approximately $509 on August 18 to $733 on August 21. The rally later extended above $800.

The accompanying chart showed a latest close of $809.90, a high of $813.60 and an opening price of $802.29. Trading volume also expanded sharply as ZEC moved through the $600, $650, $700 and $750 levels.

Grayscale Filing Accelerates the Rally

According to The Block, ZEC's rally accelerated after Grayscale filed to convert its Zcash Trust, a step that would create the first U.S. spot ZEC ETF. Before the breakout, ZEC had spent much of late July and mid-August trading in a range between roughly $460 and $520, before breaking above $550 around August 19.

The conversion route follows the one Grayscale charted with its Bitcoin Trust, which won an August 2023 U.S. appeals-court ruling against the SEC's denial and became a spot Bitcoin ETF in January 2024. As a closed-end vehicle, the Zcash Trust lacks the creation-and-redemption mechanism of an ETF, so its share price can trade at a premium or discount to the value of its ZEC holdings; the ETF structure is meant to keep share prices near net asset value and to make the product available in ordinary brokerage accounts. Because Zcash is a privacy coin, a category that has faced delistings by exchanges in markets including Japan and South Korea over anonymity concerns, the filing now enters an SEC review process that can stretch across months before an approval or denial.

The token's June decline had followed the discovery by artificial intelligence of a critical counterfeiting vulnerability, the term for a flaw that could have allowed ZEC to be minted outside the protocol's issuance rules, which had remained active for four years, according to the provided information. Despite the recent surge, ZEC remains about 73% below its all-time high of $3,191, while the chart shows an RSI reading of 71.07, above the traditional 70 level that technical analysts treat as overbought territory.

Social Activity Remains Well Below June

Santiment, a crypto analytics firm that aggregates social-media and on-chain data, recorded 1,116 ZEC mentions on June 5, one day before the token reached its June bottom. By comparison, mentions reached only 138 on August 21, roughly one-eighth of the June total. Santiment noted that social activity had returned to near May levels despite the higher price, leaving ZEC at an eight-year price high with an ETF application in regulatory review and social discussion still muted.

The chart also showed a MACD line of 72.37 against a signal line of 67.21, with a histogram reading of 5.16. Key price levels marked on the chart included $800, $750, $700 and $650.