Why is Zcash up today?

Zcash is outperforming a soft market, up 1.1% on the day and 6.9% over the week to $1,223 while bitcoin slipped 0.6% to $79,544. The move follows a governance proposal from co-founder Sean Bowe to redirect the 8% of newly issued ZEC currently flowing to Zcash Community Grants into a reserve earmarked for future mining rewards, temporarily keeping that share out of circulation. ZCG, which holds roughly 91,453 ZEC plus about $8.8 million in other assets, would keep funds already received but lose its automatic allocation — a change traders are reading as a tightening of near-term issuance and a shift in the network's long-term security budget.

Demand-side flows add support: Grayscale's ZEC ETF pulled in $41.09 million last week, and Grayscale separately credited Zcash's 20% developer fund with a decade of privacy upgrades, including Ironwood's formal verification and quantum recovery work, as the protocol marks its tenth anniversary.

Momentum is modest in absolute terms — ZEC's $771 million in 24-hour volume against a $20.8 billion market cap — and hourly liquidations were negligible at $30,000, all on shorts.