Zcash priceZEC

Zcash price rebounded 10% after bulls managed to defend the $400 support level on Wednesday. It is now eyeing a breakout from a bullish triangle pattern that could lead to gains of nearly 45% if momentum holds. Summary Zcash price was up 10% on Thursday. Nearly $2.24 billion of ZEC tokens are now shielded. An ascending triangle pattern has formed on the 4-hour chart. After falling nearly 10% from its Monday high of $454, Zcash (ZEC) price managed to recover from most of its losses as bulls managed to defend the $400 support level. Trading at $446 at press time, the privacy token is up 10% in the past 24 hours and 45% above its December low. However, the ZEC price is still 38% lower than its year-to-date high of $723 reached in November. Zcash price rebound was supported by a slew of catalysts. First, many analysts predict that privacy will become a top focus heading into 2026, with forecasts from major companies such as Grayscale touting privacy as a key crypto narrative to watch. Other privacy tokens, such as Monero (XMR), Dash (DASH), and Horizen (ZEN), have also benefited from this narrative and notched gains of 3.7%, 4.8%, and 6.4% over the past week. Second, the rising supply of shielded tokens also hints that people are increasingly utilizing the Zcash token. Per the Zcash dashboard, shielded transactions have moved up to 30.6%, with nearly $2.24 billion worth of tokens now shielded. The Zcash community is also hoping that the Grayscale ZEC ETF will be approved in the months ahead. This could lead to greater institutional inflows, which in turn could support ZEC price over the long run. Zcash price analysis The 4-hour timeframe chart shows that Zcash price has been forming an ascending triangle pattern. The neckline, which marks the level at which bulls faced resistance, stands at $475. Traders typically view a confirmed breach of this upper resistance as a primary buy signal, often resulting in a sustained move higher. Zcash price has formed an ascending triangle pattern on the 4-hour chart — Dec. 25 | Source: crypto.news In Zcash’s case, a breakout could mean a rally back to its November high and beyond as long as bullish momentum holds. Looking at technical indicators, the MACD line has formed a positive crossover with the signal line and is pointing upwards. It means that buyers are gaining strength over sellers. The Supertrend, another trend-following indicator, has also flashed a buy signal as it moved below the price level. As such, $475 stands as the key level to watch for now as it forms a crucial resistance, and a breakout from it could make way for a rally towards $648 over the coming weeks. The target, calculated by adding the height of the highest swing within the triangle pattern above the neckline level, stands around 45% above its current price. Disclosure: This article does not represent investment advice. The content and materials featured on this page are for educational purposes only.

Solana, Ethereum, and BNB Chain led L1 roles across speculation, settlement, and scale. Ethereum became a settlement while L2s like Base handled high volume and cheaper execution. Stablecoins, privacy chains, and performance L1s grew, driving fragmented niche usage. In 2025, global Layer 1 blockchain activity shifted despite weak token prices across major markets. Trading concentrated on Solana, BNB Chain, and Ethereum while stablecoins, privacy networks, and performance chains drove usage. These developments were driven by speculation, scaling limits, and rising demand for cheaper settlement. Speculation Concentrates on High-Throughput Chains Speculation shaped most retail activity in 2025, especially through memecoin trading on fast and cheap blockchains. Solana and BNB Chain handled much of this volume because they offer quick transactions and strong liquidity. In January, Solana’s decentralized exchange trading hit a record high, largely fueled by the TRUMP and MELANIA tokens. Those two memecoins accounted for about 48.5% of Solana’s January DEX activity. Pump.fun alone generated roughly 23% of Solana’s year-to-date application revenue. Because of this, launchpads played a key role in Solana’s activity during the height of speculation. But their influence dropped once memecoin hype cooled later in the year. Source: The Block Ethereum and BNB Chain then regained a larger share of DEX trading, leading to a more balanced market by mid-2025. This shift showed that Solana depended heavily on short bursts of speculative interest rather than a wide range of steady activity. BNB Chain, however, developed along a different path. Technical upgrades, including the Lorentz and Maxwell hard forks, reduced block times from three seconds to 0.75 seconds. These changes allowed the network to handle sudden activity spikes more efficiently. At the same time, cultural momentum redirected speculative flows toward BNB Chain-native platforms. Four.meme accounted for roughly 21.8% of BNB Chain’s year-to-date application revenue. Around this activity, DeFi usage consolidated around projects like Aster and Lista DAO. Ethereum and Its Settlement Role While speculation moved elsewhere, Ethereum strengthened its role as a settlement and data layer. Total value locked across Ethereum-based DeFi peaked above $97.5 billion during the year. Notably, Ethereum’s transaction count reached record levels, even as usage shifted toward Layer 2 networks. Base processed more than 3.3 billion transactions year-to-date, compared with roughly 473 million on the Ethereum mainnet. This divergence reflected Ethereum’s rollup-first roadmap. The Pectra hard fork reinforced this direction through execution and consensus upgrades. At the same time, mainnet fees dropped sharply. Average transaction costs fell from about $7.25 on January 1 to nearly $0.19 later in the year. These levels matched prices last seen in early 2020. Lower fees supported Ethereum’s function as a settlement layer rather than a high-frequency execution venue. Consequently, Ethereum absorbed value while pushing activity outward to Layer 2s. This structure allowed Ethereum to scale without directly competing on throughput. Stablecoins and Specialized L1s Shape 2026 Outlook Stablecoins became the biggest source of activity across major blockchains in 2025. Their total market value grew by about 45%, helped by more than $90 billion in new supply. This expansion supported things like memecoin trading, perpetual markets, prediction platforms, and increased use by institutions. Stablecoin balances on Solana jumped roughly 159% over the year, boosted by $4.5 billion in new USDC issued early on. Hyperliquid saw about 118% growth, mainly linked to higher perpetual futures trading. Aptos and Polygon also recorded strong gains of 142% and 76%, driven by BUIDL-related deployments. At the same time, new blockchains built specifically around stablecoins began to appear. These stablecoin-focused networks raised over $548 million in disclosed funding during 2025. Plasma quickly became the eighth-largest Layer 1 by stablecoin supply within three months of launch. Although Plasma’s activity later declined, new entrants continued to test the model. Stable launched in December, while Circle’s Arc and Stripe–Paradigm’s Tempo remained in testnet. These networks focused on compliance features, simplified fees, and on-chain foreign exchange. Related: The Role of Layer 1 Blockchains in the Crypto Ecosystem Specialization extended beyond stablecoins. Privacy-focused networks gained attention after Monero’s hashrate disruption involving Qubic. Following that episode, Zcash posted a 661% year-to-date increase, briefly surpassing Monero in market capitalization. Zcash’s integration with NEAR Protocol enabled cross-chain private transactions with selective disclosure. Shielded supply rose from about 9% in January to nearly 24% in November. At the same time, performance-focused chains like Monad and Fogo targeted lower latency trading through parallel execution and optimized validators. As 2026 gets closer, the main blockchain networks are starting to serve more specific purposes instead of all trying to do the same thing. Solana, Ethereum, BNB Chain, Zcash, Plasma, Monad, and others each settled into clearer roles in 2025, whether that was for trading, payments, privacy, speed, or stablecoin activity. Overall, the system became more spread out and specialized, shaped by how people actually use these networks instead of just following price trends. Disclaimer: The information provided by CryptoTale is for educational and informational purposes only and should not be considered financial advice. Always conduct your own research and consult with a professional before making any investment decisions. CryptoTale is not liable for any financial losses resulting from the use of the content. Tags Ethereum (ETH) News Solana (SOL) News Stablecoin News

🎯 Trade Gift | ZEC/USDT (Based on ~447 Price) (Professional, realistic, Bitget-style) ZEC/USDT (SHORT / SELL) • Entry Zone: 452 – 458 • 1st Target: 440 • 2nd Target: 425 • 3rd Target: 405 • Mid-Term Target: 380 • Stop-Loss: 472 📌 Parabolic move → exhaustion risk 📌 Profit-taking zone after sharp spike 📌 High volatility = strict risk management 📌 Direction still influenced by $BTC & $ETH

BlockBeats News, December 25th, according to Coinbob Popular Address Monitor, the "Meme Coin Short Army Leader" has recently continued to adjust its short positions, shifting focus from shorting to defense. It has successively closed short positions in multiple coins such as ASTER, UNI, PUMP, and used the released margin to buy HYPE spot and open additional short positions for hedging, with the hedging position now increased to about $7.8 million. In addition, this address has completely emptied its holdings in coins such as MON, ZEC, TRUMP within this week, and withdrew about $2 million 24 hours ago. Currently, its total holdings are around $23.08 million, apart from the HYPE hedge portfolio, mainly holding ETH shorts (about $4.94 million), ASTER shorts (about $3.78 million), and UNI shorts (about $3.04 million). This address has recently been primarily focused on shorting, having completely closed 10 short positions since this month, adept at capturing meme coin volatility opportunities. Data shows that it has realized profits of about $7.1 million in the past 30 days, with a cumulative historical profit of $82.85 million.

according to Onchain Lens monitoring, a newly created wallet has withdrawn a total of 50,000 ZEC from Binance, worth 22.17 million USD.