ZEC (Zcash) increased by 1.50% in the last 24 hours, currently at $534.95

Gate News Bot Message, December 30th, according to CoinMarketCap market data, as of press time, ZEC (Zcash) is currently trading at $534.95, up 1.50% in the past 24 hours, with a high of $554.18 and a low of $405.01. The 24-hour trading volume reached $920 million. The current market capitalization is approximately $8.806 billion, an increase of $130 million from yesterday.

Zcash is the first cryptocurrency to develop zero-knowledge cryptography technology for private peer-to-peer payments. As a form of encrypted electronic cash, ZEC uses end-to-end encryption technology to protect users’ privacy rights. The project is supported by Electric Coin Company and Zcash Foundation, featuring fairness and openness, privacy protection, and user autonomous control. The Zcash network operates faster than Bitcoin, with transaction fees usually only a fraction of a cent. Currently, ZEC is listed on multiple mainstream exchanges and supports wallet applications such as Zashi and Edge Wallet.

Important recent news about ZEC:

1️⃣ Privacy sector becomes the market focus, leading the sector to form positive feedback

Privacy coins dominated among the best-performing cryptocurrencies in Q4, with ZEC leading the way. Privacy themes performed most outstandingly throughout 2025, with ZEC and other privacy coins like XMR achieving an annualized return of over 250%, far exceeding the approximately 62% average drawdown of Meme coins. During the Christmas holiday, ZEC increased by about 30%, with a monthly rebound of 43%, and a single-day surge of 17% on December 27, with the price reaching $515 at one point. This sector rotation effect continues to strengthen the market position of privacy coins, forming a positive feedback loop for price increases.

2️⃣ Derivatives trading heat surpasses mainstream coins, with capital focus concentrated

In the past 24 hours, ZEC’s global perpetual contract trading volume reached approximately $2.9 billion, accounting for about 7% of the total market, ranking third, only behind BTC and ETH, while SOL’s trading volume was about $2.65 billion. Hyperliquid platform’s open interest for ZEC significantly increased, with the largest on-chain longs and shorts both increasing their bets simultaneously. The largest long address (0x6b2) increased its position with an average price of $520, using 3x leverage, with the current ZEC long position reaching $32.2 million, with an unrealized profit of about $6.53 million. Meanwhile, several whales have opened new ZEC positions, with four whales collectively opening longs at an average price of around $446, totaling $7.48 million. This phenomenon indicates a clear increase in speculative capital and activity in ZEC in the short term.

3️⃣ On-chain usage rate increases and continuous capital inflows form dual support

The supply of Shield ZEC has grown to about 5 million coins, nearly doubling in recent months. The proportion of protected transactions has increased to 30.6%, with the value of protected tokens approaching $2.24 billion, reflecting a continuous increase in ZEC’s actual usage in privacy payments and anonymous transaction scenarios. Newly created wallets frequently withdraw large amounts of ZEC from exchanges, with the largest single withdrawal reaching 50,000 ZEC (worth $22.17 million). Several other million-dollar withdrawals have recently occurred, including a new wallet withdrawing $7.714 million worth of ZEC within 10 hours, and another receiving $12.3 million worth of ZEC nine hours ago. These ongoing large on-chain transfers reflect sustained capital inflows and increased medium- to long-term holding intentions.

4️⃣ Technical pattern integrity lays the foundation for subsequent upward movement

ZEC is currently in a bullish ascending triangle consolidation pattern, with the price continuously raising lows supported by short- and medium-term moving averages, with clear resistance at $470–$480. The MACD has already shown a golden cross and is diverging upward, and the super trend indicator has turned bullish. The key resistance level on the 4-hour chart is at $475. If the price breaks through this level with volume, the technical target price could reach $648, representing about a 45% increase from the current price. ZEC has successfully stabilized above the critical support at $400, rebounded about 10% on Wednesday, and has already broken above the 50-day moving average in the December rally, with a technical bias toward bullishness.

This message is not investment advice. Please be aware of market volatility risks.