[DigitalToday reporter Yoonseo Lee (이윤서)] Zcash (ZEC) has broken a nine-year downtrend against bitcoin (BTC), creating a signal of a structural reversal.
U.Today, a blockchain media outlet, reported on Aug. 9 that the ZEC/BTC pair broke above the top of a long-term descending line last week and has continued to trade around 0.007904 bitcoin.
The move is seen as carrying more weight as a possible trend shift than as a short-term surge. The price is well above the 200-day simple moving average of 0.002567 bitcoin. Some interpret it as Zcash breaking out of a persistent pattern of weakness versus bitcoin that has continued since 2017.
Placeholder venture fund co-founder Chris Burniske (크리스 버니스키) said the crypto market's "old rule" has ended. He assessed the current Zcash up-cycle as fundamentally different from previous ones. He argued that strength versus bitcoin itself signals that past market scenarios are no longer working.
In the past, Zcash's short-term spikes were often interpreted as the final phase of overheating in the altcoin market. That was because a pattern of sharp declines repeated afterwards. This time, however, the price is holding above its 20-, 50-, 128- and 200-day moving averages, and Burniske described it as a "stable macro foundation." He also cited that capital flows are not the same as before.
A shift in the on-chain analytics environment was cited as a backdrop. The market sees bitcoin's characteristics as an anonymous asset having weakened as blockchain transparency increased. Burniske said the change could lead to a gradual move of liquidity into a full-privacy domain. He said that is also why privacy-focused Zcash is drawing attention again.
