Zcash (ZEC) is once again defying the market’s gods by rallying 7% in the past 24 hours while the rest of the crypto market is crashing.
Most tokens are experiencing strong drops, including XRP (XRP), which is losing 11% during this period, following a failed vote on the Clarity Act that has effectively shelved the bill for the rest of 2026.
ZEC has done this multiple times in the past, demonstrating its resilience during strong downturns, possibly amid its robust use case.
Trading volumes in the past 24 hours have jumped by 37% to nearly $21 billion — a figure that accounts for 7% of the asset’s circulating market cap.
Zcash Continues to be Resilient to Macroeconomic Headwinds
So far this year, ZEC has gained 138%, and it is the second best-performing asset in the top 10. Moreover, the token has dethroned Hyperliquid (HYPE) in market cap at the 9th spot, as the latter has retreated by nearly 10% in the past 7 days.
In addition to the Clarity Act’s headwind, the Federal Reserve is expected to make its decision on interest rates today. The market’s baseline scenario is a 25 basis points rate hike. However, analysts will dissect Chairman Kevin Warsh’s words to get some guidance regarding the central bank’s next moves.
For now, the odds of a second 25bps hike in December are quite high, exceeding 70% right now according to data from FedWatch.
Zcash has proven to be resilient to these macroeconomic headwinds as well in previous instances, which means that its recent rally could keep going even in a highly challenging macro backdrop.
Zcash Could Keep Rallying to $1,750 as Shielded Transactions Rise
According to on-chain data from ZecHub, Zcash’s shielded transactions accounted for 47% of the total processed by the network as of last week. This indicates strong usage and could be one of the reasons why the token is rallying.
A successful migration to the Ironwood vault has helped Zcash leave its recent credibility issues behind, as the developing team proves that they remain committed to keeping the project’s ecosystem safe.
Meanwhile, social metrics indicate that mentions have been steadily dropping recently, but that could change after today’s rally. We flagged a buy signal for ZEC a few weeks ago based on rising social volumes, but a bearish crossover between the 7-day and 30-day moving averages for this metric seems to be happening now.
Turning to the daily chart, we can see an ongoing consolidation pattern forming following ZEC’s strong rally to $1,300. A similar setup formed after Zcash first rallied to $900. Following a confirmed breakout, the token surged to its current peak.
Hence, we expect that a break above $1,300 could put ZEC on track to hit $1,750 in the near term, as long as the token remains resilient to the current macroeconomic headwinds.
Our long-term target for ZEC continues to be the $2,500 level. This forecast is based on a projection of a long-dated ascending triangle pattern that was broken recently, and that could indicate the beginning of a new bullish phase for this privacy token.
