Zcash ($ZEC) is climbing while most of the market falls, and the reason sits on-chain rather than in the price action.
$ZEC rose more than 13% over the past 24 hours to about $618, even as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana all fell. That makes it one of the few large tokens in the green. Two on-chain records help explain why the largest privacy coin keeps outrunning the weakness.
Zcash Shielded Supply Climbs to a Record High
The clearest signal sits in Zcash shielded supply, the amount of $ZEC held in private pools that hide transaction details. That total has climbed to about 5.1 million $ZEC, a record high.
Almost all of it sits in the newest pool, Orchard, which reached roughly 4.5 million $ZEC by late May. The older shielded pools, Sapling and Sprout, hold far less, near 592,000 and 25,000 $ZEC.
The jump matters because shielding is the core use case.
That shift lines up with the thesis Multicoin Capital laid out when it disclosed a large $ZEC position, framing privacy as a hedge against rising scrutiny of visible holdings. It also follows a cleaner regulatory backdrop, after the SEC closed its investigation into the Zcash Foundation in January and Grayscale moved to convert its Zcash trust into a spot ETF.
NEW: MULTICOIN CAPITAL SAYS IT HAS BUILT A “SIGNIFICANT POSITION” IN $ZEC SINCE FEB, CALLING ZCASH THE “CLEANEST WAY” TO EXPRESS THE PRIVACY COIN THESIS pic.twitter.com/j8slkfDlm3
— The Wolf Of All Streets (@scottmelker) May 6, 2026
A rising shielded balance shows real usage, however, not the network strength securing it.
Network Hashrate Hits an All-Time High
Behind that demand, miners are committing more power than ever. The Zcash network hashrate, the total computing power securing the chain, hit a record 16.3 GH/s in late May.
That tops the prior peaks near 11 GH/s in 2022 and 10 GH/s in 2024. A higher hashrate makes the network harder to attack and signals that miners expect mining to stay profitable.
The timing fits. The November 2024 halving cut new $ZEC issuance, so miners are adding capacity into a tighter supply rather than backing away from it. Large mining operations have expanded their Zcash capacity this year as the privacy trade gained traction.
The upcoming Zcash $ZEC halving marks a key milestone in its economic model, reducing block rewards and highlighting its privacy-focused design.
— Grayscale (@Grayscale) November 22, 2024
Strong fundamentals, though, only matter if traders are putting real money behind them.
$ZEC Is One of the Few Majors Drawing Net Buying Pressure
On the perp exchange Hyperliquid, $ZEC was one of the only major asset showing net buying pressure, at about $33.73 million, while Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana all saw net selling. Bitcoin alone showed more than $506 million in net selling.
Open interest in $ZEC sat near $368 million across about 7,190 traders, large for a token outside the top names. Demand for leverage tells the same story.
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The $ZEC funding rate, annualized, sat near 40.77%, almost four times the 10.95% on Bitcoin and Ethereum. A high positive funding rate means traders are paying a premium to stay long.
That conviction cuts both ways. The same crowded long positioning can unwind quickly if momentum stalls, and funding this high often marks an overheated market.
For now, the on-chain base and the perp demand point the same way. If shielding and buying pressure hold, $ZEC keeps outrunning the weak market, but a cooldown in funding could close the gap fast.
