A group of researchers published papers saying they would “copy” Bitcoin’s privacy homework by running Zcash’s privacy stuff to prove that ZEC can be replaced—only for the result to not kill ZEC, but instead send it up by 8.15%.
The timeline makes it clearer.
On September 25, the Zcash Foundation urgently released the Zebra 6.4.2 patch, fixing a critical vulnerability that could remotely crash any node. That same day, someone was already shouting, “Zcash has been hacked.”
On September 26, CoinDesk released a report quoting that “privacy-like Bitcoin” paper, citing fresh Zcash usage data.
On September 27, the price surged 8.15% immediately; the discussion volume on Binance Square doubled; and $10.23 million worth of short positions were liquidated.
Two distorted claims need to be corrected first.
“The Zcash was hacked” is pure clickbait exaggeration—the patch fixed a node-crash vulnerability. Funds and consensus are intact. At most, it was a close-call PR scare.
“The paper can make ZEC obsolete” is even harder to stand up to scrutiny—the paper has no launch date, no working deposit/withdrawal mechanism, and the transaction costs are even higher. What it really did was advertise Zcash’s design.
What holds up the story is the usage data itself. There are 4.9 million ZEC sitting in the shielded pool—up 14% from July 30, accounting for 29% of the circulating supply. Last week, shielded transactions hit 63,000, the most active week since 2022. Network transfer volume in the report’s terms exceeded $2.3 billion. Real money is moving on-chain—can’t fool anyone.
The NU7 upgrade on November 5 was already set long ago, and the foundation and teams like Project Tachyon were aligned on the direction well in advance. At most, it’s a points booster in the narrative—nothing that could pull this market move by itself. What actually straightened the candle chart was the short squeeze—$10.23 million of shorts got closed out. That price action was driven by the positions being squeezed out, not fundamentals.
This push upward from the squeeze isn’t solid. A pullback is normal, but it also can’t be smashed into a reversal. I’m bullish—this path can’t be stopped. The size of the shielded pool is built with real numbers. There’s only one way the tables turn: going forward, the shielded pool size and the number of transactions must reverse downward. That would indicate the story can’t be told anymore. Until then, don’t take short-term pullbacks as a top signal and scare yourself.
$ZEC #Zcash #Privacy #NU7