Zcash (ZEC) Climbs 9% to $1,313 as NU7 Activation Nears

ZEC reclaims $1,300

A 9% climb lifted the Zcash (ZEC) price back above $1,300 on Nov. 4 and returned the privacy coin to the top ten cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, with its Zcash network upgrade approaching activation. Market data put the token at $1,310.03 at 16:45 UTC, a 9.4% gain over 24 hours, after a session that swung between $1,159.27 and $1,347.03; live monitoring now shows ZEC near $1,313, still up 8.6% on the day. The rebound recovered the full drop from the session's $1,159.27 low, a swing of more than $187 between the day's extremes. ZEC also spent the session trading beneath descending resistance, the structure both chart setups revolve around. The rally stopped short of the level one trader had marked as the next trigger. Ardi, who first flagged $1,370 on Oct. 27, repeated on Nov. 4 that a break above it could squeeze short positions stacked higher; at the quoted price ZEC needed roughly another 4.6%, and the session high of $1,347.03 never reached his line. Jesse Olson offered a more constructive read the same day: his daily chart showed the price recovering from the support line he tracks and moving back above a descending trendline drawn across the recent consolidation, though he described the accompanying daily buy signal as pending rather than confirmed. Altcoin Sherpa said in a post on X that he had opened a perpetual futures long the previous night while keeping his existing spot trading exposure. He framed the trade around two possible U.S. election outcomes, stronger demand for financial privacy under a Democratic sweep or a crypto rally if the Republican result surprised, and said he held the position through election-related volatility before the rebound moved it into profit. Whether ZEC can clear $1,370 before the upgrade block arrives is what the watch list now turns on.

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NU7 cuts blocks to 25 seconds

The upgrade behind the move carries the structural changes. The Zcash Foundation's release notes for Zebra 7.0.0 set NU7 activation at mainnet block 3,543,405, expected around Nov. 5, with the date staying an estimate until the chain reaches that height. Details sit in ZIP 218, which cuts the target time between blocks from 75 seconds to 25 seconds. The scheduled subsidy per block falls by a factor of three, and halving intervals shift with it, so faster blocks do not triple newly issued ZEC; the foundation says the four-year halving schedule and the 21 million supply cap stay unchanged. The NU7 upgrade also introduces a Network Sustainability Mechanism: 60% of transaction fees flow into a reserve, miners keep the remaining 40%, and reissuance from that reserve starts later, at mainnet block 8,939,664. Node operators must install compatible software before activation, and seven Zebra security fixes ride along with the preparation, addressing stalled synchronization and excessive verification work. One change hits legacy holders directly: version 4 transactions become invalid at activation, and because Sprout transfers depend on that version, ZEC still held in the pool created at the Zcash ceremony becomes unspendable. Anyone guarding a Sprout balance behind keys recovered from an old seed phrase has to move those funds before the block arrives. Funding policy is shifting in parallel. Zcash Community Grants withdrew its 98,000 ZEC proposal after community feedback; the plan would have redirected treasury assets and future grant allocations toward mining rewards, combining about 36,200 ZEC from the existing treasury with a cut to expected funding before the 2028 halving. A competing 50,000 ZEC proposal from Tachyon Group and Shielded Labs would require a treasury contribution and steer future funding into a development and legal-defense lockbox, but it remains a proposal and needs a further upgrade after NU7. The committee keeps collecting its existing 8% allocation until any change is approved and implemented.

Overhead resistance at $1,348

Overhead supply sits close to the current level. Our composite scoring grades $1,348.62, where the Bollinger upper band meets the Ichimoku cloud top, at 66 out of 100, while the nearest support below, $1,190.48, carries a score of 60. Perp positioning is mild: the funding rate sits at 0.0062% and open interest near $909 million, so longs pay a small premium without crowded leverage. ZEC has to hold $1,190.48 to keep the push toward $1,348.62 alive; clearing that band sets up a test of Ardi's $1,370 trigger, while losing $1,190.48 hands the initiative back to sellers and puts the stronger floor near $1,078.84 in play. The trend reading behind our Zcash technical analysis page stays sideways until one of those lines breaks.