Zcash (ZEC) surged nearly 20% in the past 24 hours, briefly climbing above $1,020 on Friday as the rapid advance forced heavily leveraged short sellers to close their positions. The privacy coin was trading near $1,000, extending a rally that has pushed its price close to double its level from a month ago.
ZEC started the day at about $828 before reaching an intraday high near $1,023, according to CoinGecko. Trading volume climbed to approximately $1.2 billion over the same period, while Zcash’s market capitalization approached $17 billion.
The sharp rally dealt a major blow to bearish traders. Roughly $36.6 million worth of leveraged ZEC positions were liquidated in 24 hours, including about $34.5 million in short positions, according to liquidation data.
When a short position is liquidated, the exchange automatically closes the trade after the rising asset price leaves the trader without enough collateral. Because closing a short requires buying the token, a wave of liquidations can add further upward pressure to an already strong rally.
Zcash is now up about 94% over the past 30 days and more than 2,300% over the past year, placing it among the strongest-performing major crypto assets over those periods.
Derivatives Demand Builds
The surge in spot prices has been accompanied by growing activity in Zcash derivatives. Open interest in ZEC futures rose to roughly 2.3 million ZEC, equivalent to around $2.3 billion, indicating increased trader participation as the rally accelerated.
Recent developments have provided both technical and institutional support for Zcash’s momentum.
Grayscale launched its spot Zcash ETF on NYSE Arca in late August under the ZCSH ticker. The product transformed a trust previously limited to accredited investors into an exchange-traded fund that can be purchased through a regular brokerage account.
Institutional interest has also emerged around the token. Digital Currency Group, the parent company of Grayscale, was reportedly engaged in non-binding discussions through a subsidiary to purchase 200,000 ZEC, according to a CoinDesk report.
Network Performance Improves
Zcash has also been making progress on the technology side.
Developers behind Zakura, a Zcash node introduced in July, released new cryptographic tools earlier this month that dramatically reduced the time required to generate private transactions on mobile devices.
The process previously took more than three seconds but can now be completed in under 200 milliseconds. The improvement is part of efforts to make Zcash more efficient and practical for everyday payments.
