Zcash ($ZEC) is rising while most of the market is falling, and the reason is on the chain, not price fluctuations.
$ZEC Despite Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana all falling, it has risen more than 13% in the past 24 hours to around $618. This will be one of the few large green tokens. Two on-chain records help explain why the biggest privacy coin continues to outpace its weaknesses.
Zcash Shield supply rises to record high
The clearest signal is on the Zcash shield power supply, $ZEC It is held in a private pool that hides transaction details. The total amounted to about 5.1 million people $ZECreached a record high.
Almost all of them were kept in the newest pool, the Orchard, and the number reached about 4.5 million. $ZEC By late May. The older shield pools, Seedlings and Sprouts, have a much smaller capacity: 592,000 and closer to 25,000. $ZEC.
Jumping is important as shielding is the core use case.
This change is consistent with the theory Multicoin Capital presented when it disclosed its large assets. $ZEC It positions privacy as a hedge against increased surveillance of visible possessions. It also received a cleaner regulatory background after the SEC concluded its investigation into the Zcash Foundation in January and Grayscale moved to convert the Zcash Trust into a spot ETF.
New: Multicoin Capital announces it has achieved a “significant position” in the world $ZEC Since February, we’ve been calling ZCASH the “cleanest way” to express privacy coin claims pic.twitter.com/j8slkfDlm3
— Wolf of All Street (@scottmelker) May 6, 2026
However, the rise in shielded balances indicates actual usage, not the network strength securing it.
Network hashrate reaches all-time high
Behind that demand, miners are working harder than ever. The Zcash network’s hashrate, or the total computing power securing the chain, hit a record of 16.3 GH/s in late May.
This is higher than previous peaks of around 11 GH/s in 2022 and 10 GH/s in 2024. A higher hashrate makes it harder to attack the network, indicating that miners expect mining to remain profitable.
The timing is right. New half-life in November 2024 $ZEC As a result, miners are adding capacity rather than pulling back as supply tightens. Large-scale mining operations have expanded their Zcash production capacity this year as privacy deals gain momentum.
Future Zcash $ZEC The halving is an important milestone in the company’s economic model, which reduces block rewards and emphasizes privacy-focused design.
— Grayscale (@Grayscale) November 22, 2024
However, strong fundamentals only matter if traders are putting real money into it.
$ZEC One of the few major companies facing net buying pressure
At Perp exchange Hyperliquid, $ZEC was one of the only major assets to show net long pressure at around $33.73 million, while Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana were all net short. Bitcoin alone had over $506 million in net sales.
Open interest $ZEC Around 7,190 traders have raised nearly $368 million, which is high for a token other than the top names. The demand for leverage tells the same story.
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of $ZEC The annualized funding rate is nearly 40.77%, almost four times higher than Bitcoin and Ethereum’s 10.95%. A high positive funding rate means traders are paying a premium to stay longer.
That conviction cuts both ways. The same crowded long position can quickly unwind if momentum stalls, and financing at this high is often an indication of market overheating.
For now, on-chain base and perp demand are pointing in the same direction. If the shield and buying pressure persist, $ZEC continues to outperform weak markets, but the gap could quickly narrow as funding cools.
