OPEC Monthly Report – Provides analysis of oil market trends

Fed Chair Powell Speaks – Speaking at the National Association for Business Economics related to an outlook for the economy and monetary policy

NY Fed Manufacturing Index – Measures business conditions for manufacturing in NY providing early insights into the health of the sector & overall economic trends

Philly Fed Manufacturing Index – Similar to the above NY Fed Manufacturing Index

NAHB Housing Market Index – Measures builder confidence regarding sales, future sale expectations over next 6 months, and prospective buyers above 50 is positive

10% of S&P 500 Companies will report earnings this week, and we are still in a data blackout due to the US government shutdown

🐂 Bullish Bias: With the Crypto Flash Crash behind us I anticipate the market rebounding & making up large gains daily to recover back to recent price levels

Zcash (ZEC) is a privacy-focused cryptocurrency that lets users choose between transparent and fully private transactions using advanced zero-knowledge proofs known as zk-SNARKs.

It’s built on Bitcoin’s framework but adds cryptographic privacy, allowing anyone to verify transactions without revealing the sender, receiver, or amount.

In recent weeks, ZEC has surged dramatically in price rising more than 200% to 400% and reaching its highest level in four years as traders and investors return to privacy assets amid renewed regulation and speculation in the broader crypto market.

Launched in 2016 by the Electric Coin Company, Zcash pioneered on-chain privacy long before zk-rollups or zero-knowledge scaling became popular.

It introduced a model where users can choose between two address types: transparent addresses, which behave like Bitcoin and are fully public, and shielded addresses, which hide sender, recipient, and transaction amounts through zk-SNARK encryption.

This flexibility gives Zcash a dual identity: it can operate as a transparent asset for regulatory clarity or as a private store of value for users who prioritize confidentiality.

Zcash runs on Proof-of-Work using the Equihash algorithm and has a total capped supply of 21 million coins.

Blocks are mined approximately every 75 seconds, and halvings occur roughly every four years, reducing issuance over time.

Two major upgrades transformed the network: Sapling, which made shielded transactions faster and more efficient, and Orchard (based on Halo 2), which removed the need for any trusted setup.

These advances made Zcash’s privacy more secure, less resource-intensive, and better suited for lightweight and mobile wallets such as Zashi.

ZEC’s price has jumped from around $70 to over $280 in just a few weeks, marking one of the strongest rallies in the market.

Several forces are converging to drive this move upward.

Privacy is back in focus as governments tighten crypto surveillance and enforce stricter KYC measures. Investors are revisiting privacy coins as digital freedom hedges.

Technically, ZEC broke through long-term resistance near 100 USD, triggering a wave of momentum buying and short liquidations.

Speculation around renewed institutional interest and even potential privacy-themed ETFs has also boosted sentiment.

Finally, a social media narrative branding Zcash as “Bitcoin with an invisibility cloak” helped amplify retail excitement and push speculative flows higher.

The next chapter for Zcash centers on a new initiative called Project Tachyon, focused on scaling, faster transaction verification, and default privacy by design.

If these efforts succeed, ZEC could evolve beyond the “privacy coin” label into a foundational protocol for private blockchain infrastructure in the zero-knowledge era.

But as zero-knowledge technology becomes central to crypto’s evolution, ZEC’s design is suddenly relevant again.

Its recent surge isn’t just a hype cycle it’s a reminder that the future of digital assets may be both permissionless and private.

If you value privacy will you be adding Zcash (ZEC) to your portfolio?

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