Zcash Mining Soars as Token Price Hits $1,180
The Zcash (ZEC) price rally has made it a more attractive option for miners, with the top mining rig earning around four times more per megawatt-hour than the best Bitcoin machine. The Bitmain Z15 Pro mining Zcash generated about $727.30 per megawatt-hour in August, compared to $179 for a state-of-the-art Bitmain S23 Pro mining Bitcoin.
The increased profitability of Zcash is largely due to the token's price rally, which has been fueled by Grayscale's conversion of its Zcash Trust into an exchange-traded fund (ETF). The ETF's assets under management exceeded $500 million within two weeks, and the token crossed $1,000 for the first time on September 4.
Cypherpunk Technologies has also paid $33.33 million to fund what it calls the world's largest Zcash mining fleet, running about 4.2 GSol/s or roughly 18% of the network. The company holds nearly 2% of the ZEC supply and wants 5%. However, as more participants join the network, each participant's slice of the roughly 43,800 ZEC in monthly rewards shrinks.
The shift to Zcash comes at a time when Bitcoin mining is losing its shine. BTC's rally stalled after topping $82,000 on September 3, and it is now trading around $77,000. Many miners are skipping crypto entirely for artificial intelligence, with Riot Platforms signing a $9 billion, 20-year compute deal with Anthropic.