Zcash has continued to see an expanding upward trend recently, with ZEC reaching $1023 on Friday, representing a 20% increase over 24 hours. According to CoinMarketCap data, Zcash's market value has approached $17 billion, placing it among the top ten in the crypto asset market capitalization.

In the past month, ZEC has risen by approximately 94%; over the past year, its value has increased by more than 2300%. This has brought this privacy coin, which has been around for many years, back into the spotlight of the mainstream market.

Futures positions rise to approximately $2.3 billion

In addition to the rise in spot prices, the expansion of the derivatives market is also evident. Currently, there are approximately 2.3 million ZEC futures open contracts, which is worth about $2.3 billion at current prices.

This scale accounts for approximately 14% of the total market value of Zcash, indicating that market leverage positions have clearly increased. In the past 24 hours, the liquidation amount for leveraged positions in ZEC was about 36.6 million US dollars, of which short liquidations amounted to about 34.5 million US dollars, accounting for approximately 94% of the total disclosed liquidations.

Short liquidations tend to further drive up prices, as passive liquidations require buying spot or contracts to close positions, thereby amplifying the existing upward trend.

Grayscale Product adjustments bring new entry points

Another factor that contributed to this round of gains is the change in compliance investment channels for Zcash in the US market. Grayscale has converted its long-operated Zcash trust into Zcash ETF. Documents disclosed by the US Securities and Exchange Commission confirmed the new name and structure of this product in late August.

The stock code for this product is ZCSH. Investors can obtain ZEC exposure through regulated brokerage markets. Previously, the updated ETF document from Grayscale disclosed plans to list on NYSE Arca, and listed a management fee of 2.5%. This progress is regarded by the market as one of the important catalysts for this round of price increases.

Price quickly recovered after the security incident

This round of rebound has also received particular attention because Zcash just experienced a significant pullback a few months ago. Prior to that, after the vulnerability in the Orchard shielding pool was disclosed, ZEC fell by more than 30%. Subsequently, the development team completed the fix and proceeded with a security upgrade for Ironwood.

While prices are rising rapidly, the market is also concerned about the volatility risks associated with high leverage. Currently, futures positions worth approximately $2.3 billion are concentrated in an asset with a market value of around $17 billion, which means that if market trends reverse, the pressure for liquidation could also increase quickly.

Additional information:It is mentioned in the text that Grayscale also provided a long-term scenario calculation: if the market value of Zcash reaches 10% of that of Bitcoin in the future, the theoretical price of ZEC could approach $8,100; this statement is a scenario assumption and not a price prediction.