- Zcash rose more than 30% over the week, pushing ZEC above $1,000 and into the 10 largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization.
- ZEC’s market capitalization surpassed $17 billion, while futures liquidations exceeded $36 million over 24 hours.
- Lookonchain said trader Garrett Jin lost more than $18.5 million on a short position totaling 32,760 ZEC.
Zcash rose above $1,000 after gaining more than 30% over the week. The advance lifted ZEC into the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, making it one of the market’s largest digital assets by that measure.
ZEC’s market capitalization surpassed $17 billion, according to CoinMarketCap. A TradingView chart showed the ZEC/USDT price movement on Binance.
The sharp increase also triggered substantial futures liquidations. Liquidations of ZEC futures positions exceeded $36 million over the preceding 24 hours, according to Coinglass.
According to Crypto Banter, Zcash crossed $1,000 about 10 days after the launch of the first U.S. spot Zcash exchange-traded fund. Grayscale launched the ZCSH fund on Aug. 25 on NYSE Arca.
Short sellers’ losses
Short sellers suffered heavy losses during the rally. Lookonchain said trader Garrett Jin lost more than $18.5 million on a short position totaling 32,760 ZEC. The position was valued at $33.11 million when ZEC moved above $1,000.
Competing views on ZEC’s outlook
Syncracy Capital co-founder Ryan Watkins said ZEC is a “meme” and argued that privacy is a feature that can be implemented on any blockchain. He said Zcash’s technology stack could be deployed on other networks while describing ZEC itself as a meme asset.
Watkins compared ZEC with bitcoin, which he called an “institutional meme.” In his view, bitcoin has a significant advantage because it came first and accumulated the core liquidity. He also said he did not understand the need for “another bitcoin.”
Watkins added that, in his opinion, most bitcoin holders do not care about its original cypherpunk values and do not use the asset as a private form of Bitcoin.
An X user operating under the handle maxnaut offered a different assessment, arguing that ZEC is one of the few fixed-supply crypto assets suitable for preserving value alongside bitcoin.
Maxnaut estimated that Zcash’s market capitalization was about 1% of bitcoin’s. Based on a bitcoin price of $160,000, the user projected that ZEC could be worth $1,600 at 1% of bitcoin’s value, $3,200 at 2%, $4,800 at 3%, $8,000 at 5% and $16,000 at 10%.
The user said those calculations were based on fully diluted valuation rather than circulating supply alone.
Source: Incrypted
