On Oct. 1, the privacy-focused cryptocurrency zcash (ZEC) surged more than 60% in just 24 hours, nearly reaching $124—its highest price point in 2025 so far. Over the past seven days, ZEC has more than doubled in value, making it one of the top-performing altcoins during that period. The last time ZEC traded near this level was on May 9, 2022.
The spike in interest in ZEC is reflected in trading volume, which jumped from under $100 million on Sept. 24 to nearly $450 million by Oct. 1. ZEC’s rally also boosted its market capitalization from $962 million to $1.95 billion.
The sudden uptrend followed an announcement from decentralized exchange Thorswap, which revealed support for ZEC. In a post on X, Thorswap said users could now swap ZEC with bitcoin ( BTC). The platform described the integration as part of its mission to connect all chains and ecosystems, and emphasized its commitment to making privacy coins accessible “at a time when privacy is under attack.”
Some analysts, however, point to the launch of the Grayscale Zcash Trust for private placement as the primary catalyst behind the rally. The trust is available to eligible accredited investors and has been described by Grayscale as one of the first investment vehicles offering exposure to ZEC in the form of a security—without the complexities of directly buying, storing, or safeguarding the asset.
On social media, ZEC’s price surge was also linked to comments from Naval Ravikant, angel investor and co-founder of AngelList, who likened the coin to an insurance policy against BTC. Meanwhile, Mert Mumtaz, CEO of Helius Labs, argued that ZEC remains undervalued compared to Monero ( XMR).
“Monero [ XMR] is a 5 billion coin, and somehow zcash [ZEC] was below $700 million when I started talking about it. This is an obvious mispricing, as zcash has a stronger privacy and scale design but almost no one in crypto is technical enough to look into this,” Mumtaz explained in a post on X.