Zcash Market Cap Surges to 1.5% of Bitcoin's in Record-Breaking Rally

One year ago, Zcash's market cap was barely noticeable compared to Bitcoin's, sitting at around 0.1%. But as of September 2026, that ratio has jumped to a more substantial 1.5%, according to Grayscale.

ZEC's price skyrocketed from approximately $60 to around $1,500 in just 12 months, resulting in a market cap near $13.74 billion by late August. At the same time, Bitcoin's market cap hovered around $1.56 trillion.

Grayscale attributes the rally to growing demand for financial privacy, citing improvements in blockchain transparency and the proliferation of on-chain surveillance tools. Zcash's core feature, shielded transactions, allows users to encrypt sender, receiver, and amount data while still settling on a public blockchain.

The firm launched its Zcash ETF under the ticker ZCSH on NYSE Arca on August 25, 2026, offering direct exposure to ZEC with an arbitrage mechanism that keeps ETF prices tethered to the underlying asset. Grayscale's report includes hypothetical scenarios showing ZEC's price at various levels of Bitcoin market-cap capture.