Zcash’s ZEC climbed more than 22% over 24 hours to roughly $818.77 by 1:00 p.m. EDT Saturday, briefly reaching $855 in its highest trading level since 2018, as Grayscale advanced its proposal to convert its existing Zcash trust into a U.S.-listed exchange-traded fund.
The rally placed ZEC’s market capitalization near $13.8 billion, making it the 12th-largest cryptocurrency by market value. The move followed Grayscale’s fifth amended registration statement for the conversion, which would rename the Grayscale Zcash Trust as The Zcash ETF and charge a 2.5% annual sponsor fee.
If U.S. regulators approve the filing, the product would become the first U.S. exchange-traded fund designed to hold ZEC directly and track its market price. Grayscale’s proposed fund is targeting an August 25 listing on NYSE Arca under the ticker ZCSH, according to the updated registration documents.
The filing gives Zcash a potential route into the same exchange-traded structure that has recently expanded beyond Bitcoin and Ethereum into products linked to Solana, XRP, Litecoin, Dogecoin, BNB and Hyperliquid. The prospect has helped put ZEC back on traders’ radar after a severe June selloff tied to a software vulnerability.
Grayscale outlines fund structure and service providers
Grayscale’s amended filing names Bank of New York Mellon as administrator and Coinbase Custody as custodian for the proposed ETF. The structure would replace the current over-the-counter trust format with shares designed to trade on a national securities exchange.
That transition could address a long-running issue associated with closed-end digital-asset trusts: their market price can diverge sharply from the value of the cryptocurrency held by the trust. ETFs can create and redeem shares through authorized participants, a mechanism intended to keep a fund’s trading price closer to its underlying assets.
Grayscale has named Jane Street and Virtu Financial as authorized participants for the proposed fund. These firms would be able to create or redeem ETF share blocks, subject to the final structure and regulatory clearance.
The registration statement also refers to a nonbinding discussion involving a Digital Currency Group subsidiary, which was considering buying up to 200,000 ZEC through the trust. At approximately $818.77 per token, that amount would be worth about $164 million. The filing makes clear that no final purchase amount had been determined.
Futures activity exceeds spot turnover
The latest price acceleration was driven heavily by derivatives trading rather than spot-market purchases. CoinGlass recorded $9.54 billion in ZEC futures volume over 24 hours, compared with $1.06 billion in spot volume. Open interest — the value of outstanding futures contracts — stood at $1.76 billion, or about 13% of ZEC’s reported market capitalization.
Such a large futures market can amplify price moves in either direction. Rising open interest alongside a fast advance can reflect traders adding bullish positions, but it also creates conditions for abrupt liquidations if the price reverses and leveraged positions are forced to close.
ZEC had already gained more than 30% over the preceding week before Saturday’s jump, alongside gains in Bitcoin and other large cryptocurrencies. The token’s momentum brought it close to the $850 area, which has emerged as a near-term trading barrier after the intraday high failed to hold.
A sustained move above that level would require spot demand to remain strong enough to absorb derivatives-driven volatility. The current futures-to-spot imbalance leaves ZEC particularly exposed to rapid swings around the proposed ETF timetable and any updates from regulators.
June vulnerability drove ZEC sharply lower
The rally comes less than two months after ZEC experienced one of its steepest declines of the year. In June, the token fell as much as 60%, dropping from about $630 to $250 after developers disclosed a counterfeiting vulnerability affecting Orchard, Zcash’s shielded transaction pool.
Shielded pools allow users to transact with enhanced privacy by obscuring transaction details on the public blockchain. The vulnerability raised concerns over the integrity of Orchard’s supply controls, though developers moved to patch the issue and later restored the pool through the NU6.2 network upgrade.
The Ironwood upgrade, activated on July 28, permanently closed the affected system, according to the project’s upgrade materials. Public blockchain data showed more than 410,000 ZEC moving to the upgraded network, indicating substantial migration away from the vulnerable infrastructure.
At Saturday’s high, ZEC had more than tripled from its June low and traded about 35% above its pre-selloff level. Despite that recovery, it remained roughly 75% below its reported all-time high of $3,191.93.
The ETF filing has therefore arrived during a sensitive period for Zcash: technical remediation has helped restore confidence in the network, while the proposed fund could give regulated brokerage accounts a direct route to ZEC exposure. Approval remains subject to the U.S. regulatory process, and the token’s recent surge has been accompanied by the sort of leverage that can turn a strong rally into a sharp retracement.
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