Zcash Surges Past $1,000 as Grayscale's ETF Sparks Short Squeeze

Zcash (ZEC) has surged past $1,000 after years of trading below $200. The price increase was triggered by a short squeeze and the launch of Grayscale's ZCSH ETF on NYSE Arca.

The Grayscale ETF has accumulated over 400,000 ZEC with Coinbase as custodian, pulling in approximately $414 million in assets. This is a significant amount of buying pressure in a market where ZEC's total market cap recently crossed $17 billion.

Digital Currency Group, the parent company of Grayscale, has reportedly pursued non-binding negotiations to acquire 200,000 ZEC, roughly $200 million at current prices. If this deal materializes, it would be one of the largest single-entity accumulations of a privacy cryptocurrency in history.

Arthur Hayes, former BitMEX CEO, was among the first prominent figures to publicly buy Zcash, citing AI surveillance as a reason to own privacy technology. The tension between privacy ideology and institutional money is at the heart of Zcash's current chapter.