- Zcash has ripped roughly 700% since early October, jumping from around $75 to above $700 and pushing its market cap back above $10 billion and into the top 20.
- Arthur Hayes revealed ZEC is his fund’s second-largest holding after Bitcoin and has openly talked about a potential $10,000 target, sparking heavy social buzz, FOMO, and fresh trading interest.
- Tech upgrades like the Zashi wallet, ongoing work on Project Tachyon, growing shielded supply, and a wider privacy narrative are all helping ZEC feel like an “encrypted Bitcoin” play for DeFi rather than just an old privacy relic.
Arthur Hayes has revealed that Zcash is now his fund’s second-largest liquid holding after Bitcoin, and the market didn’t ignore it. After his disclosure, ZEC jumped more than 31% in a day to around $717, its highest level since 2018 and a big shift for a coin many thought was done. He even floated the idea that ZEC could eventually reach $10,000, after previously calling for $1,000 once it crossed $500, which naturally pulled a lot of trader attention back in.
ZEC Explodes In Price And Trading Activity
Since early October, Zcash has climbed roughly 700%, moving from about $75 to over $700 in just over a month. That rally pushed its market cap to around $10.9 billion at the peak, briefly sliding it ahead of Hyperliquid and back into the top 20 cryptocurrencies. The move also smashed derivatives traders, with over $51 million in shorts liquidated in one day and more than $59 million in total ZEC positions wiped out as futures open interest surged on Binance, Hyperliquid, and Bybit.
Privacy Tech, Zashi Wallet And The $10K Talk
Under the hood, Zcash is still leaning on its zk-SNARKs tech, letting users fully shield transaction details like addresses and amounts, which makes it feel more like digital cash than a transparent ledger.
The new Zashi wallet and ongoing Project Tachyon work have made it easier and smoother to actually use ZEC, while the shielded supply has grown to nearly five million tokens, showing people are opting into privacy, not just speculating. With growing noise around surveillance, transparency, and on-chain tracking, Hayes’ aggressive $10,000 call lands right into a narrative where Zcash pitches itself as a kind of “encrypted Bitcoin” for DeFi—even if that target still sounds kinda wild for now.
