On September 4, the price of Zcash (ZEC) briefly exceeded $1000, marking its highest value since 2018. Over the course of a day, the cryptocurrency gained approximately 20.75%, according to CoinMarketCap.

As of the time of writing, ZEC is trading at $1002.

15-minute chart of ZEC/USDT on Binance. Source: TradingView.

The total market capitalization of the privacy-focused coin is estimated at $16.9 billion, placing ZEC at tenth in the ranking of cryptocurrencies by market cap.

Source: CoinMarketCap.

The rise in Zcash's price coincides with a broader market recovery. On the night of September 4, Bitcoin tested the $82,000 mark while Ethereum surpassed $2500. In the privacy coin segment, Zcash outperformed major assets, with a reported daily increase of 15.02% according to CoinMarketCap.

Source: CoinMarketCap.

Activity has also surged in the derivatives market. As per CoinGlass, the daily trading volume for ZEC futures exceeded $8 billion, compared to $694 million in the spot market. Open interest reached $2.3 billion.

Source: CoinGlass.

Grayscale Launches Zcash ETF

A significant event leading up to the recent rally was the introduction of a new exchange-traded product by Grayscale. On August 25, The Zcash ETF, under the ticker ZCSH, began trading on NYSE Arca.

The Zcash ETF - Built by Grayscale (Ticker: $ZCSH) begins trading today @ZcashETF.

The world’s first Zcash ETF offering exposure to $ZEC, now accessible from brokerage or investment accounts.

Why $ZEC? ⟶ Zcash shares key features with Bitcoin: a 21 million… pic.twitter.com/nuaR2HBTWx

— Grayscale (@Grayscale) August 25, 2026

According to Grayscale, this is the first exchange-traded product in the U.S. dedicated solely to Zcash. The firm also claims ZCSH is the world's first ETP with spot exposure to ZEC. As of September 3, ZCSH's assets totaled $414.7 million, holding 428,613 ZEC.

Source: Grayscale.

In tandem, Grayscale has strengthened its investment thesis around privacy. In a recently published report, the company's analysts linked the rise of AI with a potential increase in demand for financial data protection tools.

"Privacy is not a niche feature of money, but rather a fundamental aspect that enables it to function," the report states.

Analysts believe that artificial intelligence could lower costs and enhance the scalability of matching public blockchain addresses with external information. In this context, the privacy transaction features of Zcash could see increased demand, according to Grayscale.

Pools

As the price rally continues, the volume of coins within Zcash's protected infrastructure remains high. According to ZecStats on September 4, approximately 4.86 million ZEC, or 28.8% of the total supply of around 16.91 million ZEC, are held in four pools.

Source: ZecStats.

In the last week, the net inflow into the protected pools was about 57,000 ZEC.

Fully shielded transactions utilize zero-knowledge proofs to conceal the sender, recipient, and transfer amount. Zcash also supports other types of transactions, so not all transactions hide all three parameters.

On August 29, the Zakura team introduced a library set that reduces the preparation time for a private transaction from over three seconds to under 200 milliseconds in specific scenarios.

On June 5, ZEC's price fell by 48% to $302.48 after details emerged about a previously addressed critical vulnerability in the Orchard shielded pool. The flaw theoretically allowed the unnoticed creation of an unlimited number of coins. Developers deemed its exploitation unlikely; however, due to Orchard's privacy, users could not independently verify the integrity of the supply.

Following an urgent fix on July 28, developers activated Ironwood, launching a new shielded pool in place of Orchard and a turnstile mechanism to verify supply integrity during fund migration.

Additionally, in August, Cypherpunk Technologies announced the launch of its mining division, Cypherpunk Mining, which will mine Zcash with a total computing power of approximately 4.2 GSol/s. The firm estimates this accounts for roughly 18% of the hash rate of the anonymous cryptocurrency network.