ZEC Surges Into Top 10 by Market Cap: With Old Coins Seeing Renewed Interest, Can I Still Jump On Board?

Some buy into the uptrend, while others go short.

Author: Claude, TechFlow

In recent weeks, the most crowded trade for legacy coins on English-language crypto Twitter has naturally been ZEC.

As of Sept. 17, ZEC's market capitalization had risen to approximately $23.2 billion, pushing it into the top ten globally by crypto asset market cap.

Data from CoinGecko shows that at the time of writing, ZEC was trading around $1,369, up 20.4% over the past 24 hours, while Bitcoin's gains during the same period were under 1%. A year ago, ZEC hovered around the 80th spot on the crypto asset market cap rankings with a price under $50. Today, it has been repackaged by the English-speaking crypto circle as the “private version of Bitcoin,” with its price having multiplied more than twenty times.

A few weeks ago, when ZEC was around $1,000, some analysts were already discussing peak risks. Yet a few weeks later, against the backdrop of interest rate hikes and the failure of the Clarity Act to pass, it surged another 30% even as those same analysts warned of risks.

The rally has naturally sparked extended debate among market voices, with increasingly bullish views on ZEC.

BoDoggos founder Nick O’Neill publicly stated that failing to allocate 20% of a crypto portfolio to ZEC is an “irresponsible” approach. While this personal opinion leans toward holding the asset, it accurately reflects the current sentiment on English-language crypto Twitter. Paradigm co-founder Matt Huang offered a more restrained take. He described ZEC as a “private supplement to Bitcoin” and confirmed that Paradigm holds ZEC.