Zcash (ZEC) Co-Founder Eli Ben-Sasson Holds $5,000 Year-End Forecast

Ben-Sasson Holds $5,000 Call

Zcash (ZEC) co-founder Eli Ben-Sasson has reaffirmed his $5,000 year-end price target for the privacy-focused coin — while admitting that even he cannot fully explain the rally that carried it this far. In a post on X on Thursday, Ben-Sasson said the forecast he laid out earlier in the year remains intact, noting that ZEC had already smashed through his previous milestone of $1,200 by September 25. The token did not stop there: it briefly traded above $1,600 and printed a 24-hour high of $1,621 as the momentum compounded. Market data puts ZEC's trailing 30-day gain at roughly 102%, capping a run that lifted the coin to a $1,590 multi-year high along the way. What makes the call unusual is Ben-Sasson's own candor about the cause. He observed that whale investors have been asking him why Zcash's privacy model is suddenly drawing this much capital, and conceded that he does not have a precise answer himself. Recent on-chain flows back that up: Garret Jin's whale accumulation has been one visible thread in the move. As for $5,000, the co-founder frames it as a broad view of the network's potential by the end of 2026 rather than the output of a short-term trading model — a level sitting roughly 3.2x above where the coin traded when the forecast drew renewed attention. It is a projection, not a guarantee, and the desk treats it as such.

ZCSH Tops $1B in Assets

Institutional demand is the clearest fundamental thread behind the surge. Grayscale's Zcash exchange-traded fund, ZCSH, has crossed $1 billion in assets under management roughly one month after launch, per the asset manager's announcement, which described the product as the world's first Zcash fund. The spot trading vehicle booked approximately $306.12 million in net inflows over the past 30 days alone, pushing total net assets through the $1 billion threshold — a signal that investor interest in ZEC through traditional wrappers is accelerating fast. That pace explains why Grayscale earlier moved to file for a 3-for-1 share split after $233 million in inflows, a structural response to surging demand. The milestone lands amid a broader revival of interest in privacy-oriented altcoins, a theme our Zcash coverage has tracked week by week. The rally has also revived a debate about what ZEC actually is. Alliance co-founder Qiao Wang, speaking on a recent podcast, compared Zcash to Bitcoin and called it “a Bitcoin that can change.” His argument: Zcash's protocol retains the flexibility to update against emerging threats, from quantum-computing risks to tightening privacy demand, whereas Bitcoin's deliberately rigid blockchain design offers ironclad guarantees on fixed supply and predictability but limits how quickly the network can adapt. Wang was careful to position ZEC not as a superior Bitcoin but as a hedge — he holds far more Bitcoin than ZEC and treats the privacy coin as protection against technological or structural risks Bitcoin itself might face. For direct ownership outside fund wrappers, our step-by-step guide to buying Zcash covers the process end to end. Readers tracking the market in real time can follow live spot and futures prices on MEXC.

$1,528 Support Is the Line

COINOTAG's proprietary 42-indicator composite S/R scoring engine puts ZEC at $1,543.32, down 1.25% on the day, with the uptrend still technically intact — RSI at 65.05 and a bullish MACD signal. Our composite rates the $1,528.17 support at 84/100, the strongest level on the board, driven by S1 pivot, Ichimoku Tenkan and a flipped resistance-to-support confluence; the $1,583.78 resistance scores 69/100 on Keltner Upper, R1 and a bearish pin bar, with $1,674.44 next at 65/100. Derivatives show $1.05 billion in open interest but a negative funding rate of -0.0013% on perpetual futures, meaning shorts pay longs — a mild contrarian positive in a market where the Fear & Greed Index reads 71, or Greed. Hold $1,528 and the path targets $1,584, then $1,674; lose it and the bullish thesis invalidates toward the $1,412 support at 61/100.