Zcash Falls Below $1,000 for First Time Since September as Crypto Sell-Off Deepens
Key Takeaways
- •Zcash dropped to a two-month low of $962.85 on Wednesday, breaking below $1,000 for the first time since September and posting a 13.5% 24-hour decline, the biggest loss among the 100 largest cryptocurrencies.
- •The sell-off followed US data showing consumer prices rose 0.4% in October, above the 0.3% forecast, and came amid a broader market decline that left Bitcoin down 5.8% and Ether down 11.6% over seven days.
- •ZEC's fall pushed the privacy coin category, valued at $28 billion, down roughly 7% in 24 hours, underscoring Zcash's dominant 60% share of the sector.
- •Grayscale's spot Zcash ETF, which started trading on NYSE Arca on Aug. 25, recorded about $15 million in net outflows in November through Monday after roughly $46 million in outflows during October.
- •The network activated its NU7 upgrade on Friday, cutting target block times from 75 seconds to 25 seconds and making about 12,224 ZEC in the original privacy pool unspendable, and developers have proposed further block time reductions.
Zcash (ZEC) dropped to a two-month low of $962.85 on Wednesday, pushing the token below $1,000 for the first time since September, a day after asset manager Grayscale pledged $1 million to nonprofits and projects supporting the Zcash network.
As of 12:20 pm UTC on Wednesday, the token's 13.5% decline led 24-hour losses among the 100 largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, and it was down 24.5% over seven days. The fall came amid a broader crypto sell-off that left Bitcoin (BTC) down 5.8% and Ether (ETH) down 11.6% over the same period, according to CoinGecko.
Crypto prices fell further on Tuesday after data showed US consumer prices rose 0.4% in October from the previous month, exceeding economists' 0.3% forecast.
Launched in 2016, Zcash lets users send shielded payments that keep sender and recipient addresses and transaction amounts out of public view using zero-knowledge cryptography. The asset helped drive this year's rally in privacy coins, gaining 138% in the 30 days to Sept. 7, and it remains the largest privacy coin by market value, accounting for roughly 60% of the $28 billion category tracked by CoinGecko — a dominant share that makes ZEC's price swings a major factor in the category's overall performance. The category's combined market value fell about 7% over 24 hours.
ZEC traded above $1,370 as recently as Friday, when the network activated its NU7 upgrade. The upgrade cut the target time between blocks from 75 seconds to 25 seconds to speed up transaction confirmations, and it made about 12,224 ZEC held in the network's original privacy pool unspendable.
Grayscale converted its Zcash Trust into a US spot exchange-traded fund (ETF) that began trading on NYSE Arca on Aug. 25, giving investors exchange-traded exposure to the largest privacy coin. The fund recorded about $15 million in net outflows in November through Monday, following roughly $46 million in October, according to SoSoValue, figures that offer a running measure of investor demand for the product.
Zcash developers have since proposed another cut to the network's block times, just days after the NU7 upgrade went live, keeping confirmation speed a focal point of the network's recent development work.
