Zcash Slips 21% From Peak as ETF Outflow and Hack Sentiment Weigh

Zcash is down 7.29% on Thursday, trading at $1,333.50 with about three hours left before the daily candle closes, according to Decrypt. That leaves the privacy coin roughly 21% below the $1,698 peak it reached in late September. The decline follows a massive rally that saw ZEC climb about 253% from a $480.72 base to that high.

The broader market offered little support. Bitcoin briefly spiked to $85,600 on Wednesday after softer-than-expected PCE inflation data but quickly gave back those gains. The 10-year Treasury yield closed at 5.29%, and the odds of an October Federal Reserve rate hike fell from 70% to below 50%, according to CME FedWatch.

ETF flows have also shifted. Grayscale launched its Zcash ETF, ticker ZCSH, on Aug. 25, attracting $233 million in net inflows by mid-September. On Wednesday, the fund recorded a $30.25 million net outflow, leaving cumulative net inflows at nearly $268 million. Its 3-for-1 share split also took effect that morning.

Sentiment is further complicated by the Bitget hack. Hackers stole about $387 million from the exchange on Sept. 24, up from an initial $351.6 million estimate after transfers on the Zcash and Tron blockchains were counted. Bitget's CEO says the attack is consistent with North Korean hacker groups, though firm attribution is still pending, according to Decrypt. On Wednesday, blockchain investigator ZachXBT flagged 2,746 ZEC, worth about $3.9 million, moving from hack-linked addresses into Zcash's shielded pool, according to Decrypt. While the hack likely isn't the trigger for today's drop, it isn't helping sentiment.

Technical indicators point to a correction. The Relative Strength Index (RSI) is at 50.2, dead neutral, suggesting ZEC is neither overbought nor oversold. The Average Directional Index (ADX) reads 52.0, indicating a very strong trend, but it lags and can stay elevated while price falls. The 50-day exponential moving average remains above the 200-day, keeping the trend bullish on paper, though a continued slide would cause those lines to converge.

A 21% drop after a 253% sprint isn't unusual. In June, ZEC fell from $635 to an intraday low of $309 when a critical vulnerability in its shielded pool was disclosed, then climbed past $1,600. The chart currently reads like a correction, not a collapse. A daily close below $1,233.00 would put the golden zone in play, while a reclaim of $1,410.72 would put the run back on track.