Privacy Coin Zcash Continues Historic Surge, Nearing 8-Year High Price

The post Privacy Coin Zcash Continues Historic Surge, Nearing 8-Year High Price appeared com. In brief Zcash surged 33% on Friday to a recent high of nearly $735, triggering $51 million in short liquidations and ranking third in crypto liquidations behind Bitcoin and Ethereum. The token’s price has jumped tenfold in five weeks amid growing privacy concerns about Bitcoin’s centralization and corporate influence. Thursday’s harsh sentence for a Bitcoin privacy app developer may have further fueled Zcash’s rally. Privacy-focused Bitcoin alternative Zcash went on a tear Friday, surging some 33% in a matter of hours and triggering over $51 million in short position liquidations. The token surged to nearly $735 Friday afternoon, up from $536 just a day earlier. It has since settled to $666 as of this writing, still up 25% over the past day. That rapid price action made Zcash-related positions the third-most liquidated in crypto on Friday, behind only dominant mainstays Bitcoin and Ethereum. Over $59 million worth of Zcash positions have been liquidated, including longs, per data from CoinGlass, compared to $150 million in liquidations for BTC and $146 million for ETH.  Zcash, until recently a fairly obscure cryptocurrency, has been on a near-nonstop streak for over a month. The token, which had hovered around $40 for over three years, began pumping in early October and hasn’t let up since. In just five weeks, its price has ballooned by a factor of 10. According to data from CoinGecko, Friday’s peak was the highest price registered since January 2018. Even so, at its current price, Zcash remains 79% below the all-time high mark of $3,191 set back in 2016. Analysts have argued in recent weeks that Zcash’s recent rally is thanks in large part to growing anxieties about Bitcoin’s privacy and decentralization in a moment of unprecedented corporate and political embrace of the world’s top cryptocurrency. Zcash, created in 2016.