Zcash Crossed $1,000 for the First Time in Nearly a Decade. 3 Whales Wish It Hadn't

Zcash’s (ZEC) triple-digit rally has put pressure on short sellers, who now watch their positions sink deeper into the red.

ZEC has gained 120% in the past month alone and trades near $1,124. It crossed $1,000 last week for the first time in nearly a decade.

Zcash (ZEC) Price Performance. Source: BeInCrypto Markets

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ZEC Shorts Sink Further as Zcash Leads the Only Winning Sector 

The rally has proved costly for traders positioned against ZEC. Hyperliquid data shows trader Garrett Jin, wallet 0x92ea…50e9, short 39,760 ZEC worth $44.86 million from an average entry of $576.30.

“Garrett Jin just closed his entire 1,332  BTC  ($105.4M) long for a $2.7M profit and is now fully focused on shorting ZEC,” Lookonchain posted.

Garrett Jin’s ZEC Short Position. Source: Hypurrscan

That trade is down $21.94 million and liquidates at $2,540.47. A second wallet, 0xdd53…2b13, is short 27,557 ZEC from $644 and is sitting on a paper loss of $13.33 million.

A third, 0x362a…1d9f, is down $4.12 million on 15,785 ZEC. Together, the three sit on roughly $39 million in unrealized losses.

None of them has folded yet. Funding has softened the blow, with Jin collecting $554,850 since opening the trade, because positive funding rates mean long positions pay short ones.

These bears are not just fighting one token, however. They are short, the only sector still above its level when Bitcoin (BTC) peaked in October.

Privacy Is the Only Sector Still Above the October High

Bitcoin sits 36% below its October 2025 peak, and the median top-200 asset trades 58% lower. Privacy coins are the exception, up 213% over that stretch, Glassnode found.

The sector was worth $7.1 billion a year ago. It is worth $33.6 billion today. ZEC drove most of that expansion. 

Glassnode puts it at 62% of the sector by market cap and up 2,496% in 12 months. Strip ZEC out, however, and the remaining privacy basket is still up 85%.

Institutional money has followed. Grayscale listed the first US spot Zcash exchange-traded fund (ETF) on NYSE Arca on August 25, and the fund has since gathered $463 million.

Still, the concentration cuts both ways. ZEC futures open interest sits at $2.56 billion, per CoinGlass, so the same leverage punishing the bears could turn on the longs if the privacy bid fades.

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