In short
- Zcash rose 33% on Friday to a recent high of nearly $735, leading to $51 million in short liquidations and ranking third in crypto liquidations behind Bitcoin and Ethereum.
- The token’s price has increased tenfold in five weeks due to growing privacy concerns over Bitcoin’s centralization and corporate influence.
- Thursday’s harsh punishment for a Bitcoin privacy app developer may have further fueled Zcash’s rally.
Privacy-focused Bitcoin alternative Zcash went on a tear Friday, surging some 33% within hours and causing more than $51 million in liquidations of short positions.
The token rose to almost $735 Friday afternoon, compared with $536 a day earlier. Since then, the price has fallen to $666 at the time of writing, which is still up 25% in the past day.
That rapid price action made Zcash-related positions the third most liquidated cryptocurrency on Friday, behind only dominant mainstays Bitcoin and Ethereum. According to data from CoinGlass, more than $59 million worth of Zcash positions have been liquidated, including longs, compared to $150 million in liquidations for BTC and $146 million for ETH.
Zcash, until recently a fairly obscure cryptocurrency, has been going almost non-stop for over a month. The token, which has been hovering around $40 for more than three years, started rising in early October and hasn’t stopped since. In just five weeks the price has increased by a factor of 10.
According to data from CoinGecko, Friday’s peak was the highest price since January 2018. Still, at its current price, Zcash remains 79% below its all-time high of $3,191 in 2016.
Analysts have argued in recent weeks that Zcash’s recent rally is due in large part to growing concerns about Bitcoin’s privacy and decentralization in a moment of unprecedented commercial And politics embracing the best cryptocurrency in the world.
Zcash, created in 2016 via a fork from Bitcoin’s codebase, encourages anonymous transactions with a system of zero-knowledge proofs. It is the largest privacy-focused crypto token by market cap, with a current valuation of approximately $11 billion.
While Zcash’s price has risen consistently in recent weeks, today’s rise could have been at least partially influenced by the outcome of a closely watched lawsuit in the United States involving privacy and crypto software development.
On Thursday, Keonne Rodriguez, a developer of the privacy-focused Bitcoin app Samourai Wallet, was present convicted to five years in prison after pleading guilty to operating an unlicensed money transmitter.
That sentence – the maximum possible that Rodriguez could have received – was asked by President Trump’s Justice Department, which has done so in other contexts promised to protect the rights of crypto developers.
The decision was roundly criticized by leading crypto and privacy organizations advocates.
Daily debriefing Newsletter
Start every day with today’s top news stories, plus original articles, a podcast, videos and more.
