Zcash falls to $962.85 as Grayscale ETF posts $15 million outflows

By Daniel Okafor

Zcash fell 13.5% to $962.85 at 12:20 p.m. UTC Wednesday, according to CoinGecko, its first trading below $1,000 since September. The two-month low came a day after Grayscale pledged $1 million to nonprofits and projects supporting the Zcash network.

Zcash’s decline was reported as nearly 15%, and its 13.5% 24-hour loss led losses among the 100 largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization. It was also down 24.5% over seven days. CoinGecko showed the combined privacy-coin category down about 7% over 24 hours.

Bitcoin fell 5.8% and Ether 11.6% over the same 24-hour period, according to CoinGecko. The comparison shows that pressure on ZEC extended beyond its privacy-coin peers and coincided with a wider retreat from major crypto assets.

What prompted the market move?

Crypto prices fell further Tuesday after U.S. consumer prices rose 0.4% in October from the previous month, above the 0.3% forecast by economists. The macro reading supplied the immediate backdrop for a decline that also affected privacy coins, Bitcoin and Ether.

Grayscale’s $1 million pledge came a day before the low, but the commitment did not prevent the immediate sell-off. The announcement added funding for ecosystem operations while ZEC faced continued pressure from the broad crypto sell-off.

What supports Zcash’s market position?

Zcash lets users send shielded payments that keep sender and recipient addresses and transaction amounts out of public view. For users, that means observers cannot see the counterparties or transfer amount on the public record.

Zcash helped drive this year’s privacy-coin rally, gaining 138% in the 30 days to Sept. 7. Zcash remains the largest privacy coin by market value and accounts for about 60% of the $28 billion category tracked by CoinGecko.

That concentration makes ZEC’s market performance a key indicator for the category, which contracted about 7% over 24 hours. A move in the largest component can therefore have an outsized effect on how investors measure the broader privacy-coin market.

What did the NU7 upgrade change?

ZEC traded above $1,370 as recently as Friday, when Zcash activated its NU7 upgrade. NU7 cut the target time between blocks from 75 seconds to 25 seconds. The change lowered the network’s block-production target and was designed to speed up transaction confirmations.

The upgrade also made about 12,224 ZEC held in the network’s original privacy pool unspendable. The change removed those holdings from the set of coins available for spending while shortening block times, combining a supply adjustment with faster network processing.

Days after NU7, Zcash developers proposed another block-time cut. The proposal would extend a sequence of network changes focused on faster settlement, keeping confirmation speed at the center of the network’s immediate development agenda.

How is Grayscale’s ETF performing?

Grayscale converted its Zcash Trust into a U.S. spot exchange-traded fund that began trading on NYSE Arca on Aug. 25. SoSoValue reported about $15 million in net outflows in November through Monday, following about $46 million in October.

The two readings show net withdrawals in both reported periods after the product’s conversion to a spot ETF. Investors redeemed more than they added in each period, reducing the listed vehicle’s assets and its role as a channel for incremental exposure to ZEC.

Grayscale’s separate $1 million pledge and the ETF flows now sit on distinct operational tracks. One commits capital to nonprofits and projects supporting Zcash, while the other records continued net withdrawals from the listed product.

The next market-structure checkpoint is the proposed additional block-time cut. If adopted, it would build on NU7’s move from a 75-second to a 25-second target and directly change how quickly shielded transactions confirm.