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Zcash Surges Above $800 After Grayscale ETF Move

Grayscale filed a fourth amendment for a spot ETF on NYSE Arca, while the SEC still has to make a decision. The rally was boosted by heavy futures trading and speculation around Zcash as a privacy token.

By Zenz van der Wielen
• 2 min read
Zcash Surges Above $800 After Grayscale ETF Move

Key Takeaways

  • Zcash rose above $800 for the first time since 2018 on Saturday, after a price jump from $589 to $851 in 24 hours.
  • Grayscale filed a fourth amendment to convert the Zcash Trust into a spot ETF on NYSE Arca, but the SEC still has to decide.
  • The rally came alongside heavy futures activity, while Zcash is known for its Bitcoin design and privacy through zero-knowledge proofs.

Zcash jumped above $800 (€684) on Saturday for the first time since 2018, after the privacy token was boosted by heavy futures trading, talk about a possible role as the ‘next bitcoin’ and a new move from Grayscale toward a spot ETF. The price rose from $589 (€503) to $851 (€727) in 24 hours, a 45% move.

Grayscale Pushes Ahead With ETF Move

On August 18, Grayscale filed its fourth amendment to convert the Zcash Trust into a spot exchange-traded fund on NYSE Arca, under the ticker ZCSH. That means the process is moving forward, but it is not approval yet. The application is still with the SEC.

The filing also said that DCG International Investments, another DCG subsidiary, is in non-binding talks to buy about 200,000 ZEC through the trust. At Saturday’s price, that would come out to about $163 million (€139 million).

Futures Trading Jumps

The price surge came alongside unusually high derivatives activity. On Friday, futures volume was about $4.55 billion (€3.9 billion), compared with roughly $553 million (€473 million) in spot volume. Open interest was around $1.35 billion (€1.2 billion). Over the past 24 hours, volume stood at $2.24 billion (€1.9 billion), equal to about 16% of Zcash’s total market value.

That kind of leveraged trading can make a rally move faster, but it can also make a reversal sharper. Zcash already showed earlier this year how quickly sentiment can flip, when the price dropped hard in June after a vulnerability in the Orchard shielded pool, the part of the network where private transactions are processed.

Why Zcash Is Back in Focus

Zcash was built on Bitcoin’s design and has the same maximum supply of 21 million coins, proof-of-work mining, and a halving schedule. On top of that, it uses zero-knowledge proofs to shield transactions. For European crypto followers, that matters because privacy coins often get extra attention when trading, regulation, and product access are all moving at the same time.

History also plays a role, since Zcash has long had a place in the broader crypto market. The New York State Department of Financial Services approved the coin for trading on Gemini in 2018, and the technology behind Zcash was also used in JPMorgan’s Quorum platform in 2017 for confidential business transactions.

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