Zcash Price Prediction: ZEC Hits $1,000 as Grayscale Links Rally to Hard Money Thesis

Zcash (ZEC) price is up by 20% today, September 4, to trade at $1,001 at the time of writing. These gains come barely two weeks after Grayscale launched a ZEC ETF that has already amassed more than $400 million in net assets.

Grayscale Attributes ZEC’s Recent Gains to Hard Money Thesis

In a recent post on X, Grayscale opined that Zcash is in a new phase of price discovery because investors are beginning to view ZEC as hard money because its supply is capped at 21 million coins.

The digital asset manager also says that demand for Zcash is rising because of growing attention towards digital privacy coins.

Grayscale’s post comes amid Zcash’s 94% gain since August 4. ZEC price is also up by 2,300% between September 2025 and September 2026 and has displaced Dogecoin (DOGE) to become the tenth-largest crypto with a market cap of $16.8 billion.

The recent move to the psychological resistance of $1,000 comes barely two weeks after Grayscale launched a ZEC ETF. Data from Grayscale shows that this ETF has amassed $414 million in net assets.

A recent report by CoinGape also noted that Grayscale’s head of research, Zach Pandl, expects the price of Zcash to reach $8,100 if it takes only 10% of Bitcoin’s market share. At its current price of $1,000, ZEC accounts for 0.1% of Bitcoin’s market cap of $1.62 trillion.

Zcash Open Interest Soars to $2.33B Despite Ongoing Short Squeeze

Data from CoinGlass shows that ZEC’s open interest has increased by 42% to $2.33 billion at the time of writing. This OI is at a record high despite an ongoing short squeeze as traders who are betting that the price of Zcash will drop become liquidated.

More than $34 million worth of Zcash short positions have been wiped out between September 3 and September 4, per CoinGlass. One of the liquidated traders is popular analyst Garrett Jin, who lost $18.5 million in his Zcash position worth $33.11 million.

Still, this short squeeze has not deterred more short sellers from opening positions because the long/short reading on Binance and OKX has dropped to 0.60 and 0.37, respectively, suggesting that there are more short accounts than long accounts.

ZEC Price Prediction as Bulls Target $1,400 Next

The one-week chart shows that the value of Zcash broke out of the resistance of a cup-and-handle pattern at $699, with this move suggesting that the future ZEC outlook shifted from a bearish one to a bullish one.

If ZEC price also moves above the psychological resistance of $1,000 on the weekly chart and later confirms this price to be support, the uptrend could continue to the 61.8% Fib of $1,400.

The cup and handle pattern also has a depth of 257%, suggesting ZEC price could move to $2,500 after closing above the pattern’s resistance of $699.

The RSI reading of 73 suggests that the momentum is favoring bulls. However, this RSI is close to reaching an overbought zone that could cause the rally to stall before another phase of buying commences.

The CMF line that is making a higher high suggests that the buying pressure is currently higher than the selling pressure, and this could drive more short-term gains.