NEW YORK — Zcash's market capitalization expanded to 1.5 percent of Bitcoin's value over the past year, up from 0.1 percent. Grayscale projects further growth for the privacy coin, citing persistent demand for digital asset privacy.
ZEC climbed from about $60 to $1,500 over 12 months. The nearly 19-fold price increase pushed Zcash's market cap to nearly $13.74 billion by late August 2026.
Bitcoin's market capitalization was about $1.56 trillion during the same late August period. By late September 2026, ZEC traded near $1,400, with its market cap closer to $23 billion to $24 billion, signaling continued momentum.
Grayscale launched its Zcash ETF, ticker ZCSH, on NYSE Arca on Aug. 25, 2026. This product converted from Grayscale's Zcash Trust, established in 2017.
The conversion into an ETF eliminates the historical premium or discount to net asset value seen in Grayscale's previous trust structures. The ZCSH ETF now offers direct ZEC exposure, using an arbitrage mechanism to keep its price tethered to the underlying asset.
Grayscale's report, published Sept. 29, 2026, attributes Zcash's rally to increasing demand for financial privacy. As blockchain transparency improves and on-chain surveillance tools become widespread, users increasingly seek options for private transactions.
Zcash's core feature is its optional shielded transactions. These allow users to encrypt sender, receiver and amount data while still settling on a public blockchain. The protocol uses zero-knowledge proofs to enable this privacy.
Zcash mirrors Bitcoin's scarcity model with a capped supply of 21 million coins. Grayscale frames Zcash's opportunity in relative terms, noting Bitcoin holds 90 percent to 93 percent of the cryptocurrency sector's total market cap.
The firm included hypothetical scenarios in its report, showing ZEC's price at various levels of Bitcoin market cap capture. If Zcash reached 2 percent of Bitcoin's market cap, its implied price would land near $1,622.
Despite its growth, Zcash carries specific risks. It exhibits higher volatility than Bitcoin. Regulatory risk also poses a challenge, as several exchanges have delisted privacy-focused tokens due to concerns about money laundering.
