Zcash (ZEC) changed hands at about 1,483.88 dollars late on September 20, CoinGecko price data showed, up 33.8 percent over seven days and 119.9 percent over 30 days. At a market value of roughly 25.1 billion dollars the privacy-focused token ranked ninth among cryptocurrencies, a position it has not held in years.
The move extends a rally that began in mid-September, when Paradigm co-founder Matt Huang disclosed that the venture firm is both a holder of ZEC and an investor in the Zcash Open Development Lab (ZODL), the organisation that now leads development of the network. CoinTelegraph reported on September 17 that ZEC traded near 1,338 dollars after gaining about 20 percent in 24 hours, and that its one-month advance of roughly 160 percent compared with 18.2 percent for Bitcoin over the same period, citing CoinGecko data. investingLive put the week's gain at more than 45 percent.
Voting results published on the Zcash Community Forum on September 14 had already given the market its other catalyst. About 99.9 percent of participating voting weight backed cutting the target block spacing to 25 seconds from 75 seconds under NU7, the network's next upgrade, while 98.9 percent supported keeping the existing halving schedule and issuance unchanged. Turnout was the highest recorded: 2.4 million ZEC took part, against 3.6 million ZEC held in the shielded pool at the snapshot height, a participation rate of about 66 percent - comfortably above the one million ZEC threshold that organisers had set for the poll to count as representative of coinholders.
The combined ZCAP poll drew 135 of 198 eligible community panel members, a 68 percent response rate, the Zcash Foundation said in the same forum thread. Coinholders also backed deprecating the Sprout pool at NU7, starting Network Sustainability Mechanism reissuance in 2031 and narrowing the upgrade's scope to the work that is ready by September 30.
Zcash's gain dwarfs that of the world's largest cryptocurrency. Bitcoin traded near 81,051 dollars on September 20, little changed over 24 hours, according to CoinGecko. Privacy coins more broadly have also outperformed: Glassnode data cited by CoinTelegraph put the sector 213 percent above its level at Bitcoin's October 2025 peak, while a basket excluding ZEC was up about 85 percent over the past year. Monero, the largest privacy coin by market value, traded near 554 dollars.
The institutional signal is arguably more consequential than the price print. Paradigm manages roughly 12 billion dollars, investingLive reported, making it one of the better-known venture investors in digital assets, and its disclosure is among the clearest endorsements of a privacy-focused token by such a firm. Huang described Zcash as a "private complement to Bitcoin" and backed its inflation-funded developer fund, arguing that long-term funding becomes more important as AI-driven cyber capabilities and quantum computing advance. He also said he favoured combining Zcash coin voting with other forms of governance to reduce unpredictability in the asset's monetary policy. Paradigm was already an investor in ZODL's seed round of more than 25 million dollars, which CoinTelegraph reported was announced in March alongside a16z crypto, Coinbase Ventures and Winklevoss Capital.
The macro backdrop helped. The Federal Reserve raised rates by 25 basis points to a 3.75 to 4 percent range on September 16, its first increase since 2023, and investingLive said its projections were less hawkish than the market had priced, a combination that lifted risk assets generally.
Three caveats are worth stating. Paradigm did not disclose the size of its ZEC position, the price it paid or when it bought, so the disclosure speaks to conviction rather than scale. Coinholder polls are signalling exercises rather than binding votes: developers aim to finalise NU7's contents by September 30 and no activation date has been set, so a 25-second block target is a direction of travel, not a scheduled change. And the size of the rally depends on the window used - CoinGecko's 30-day measure shows a gain of about 120 percent, while CoinTelegraph reported a one-month increase of roughly 160 percent - while the privacy-coin basket figures rest on Glassnode data that has not been published in a form that can be reproduced independently.
Sources
- [Cointelegraph](cointelegraph.com) - Zcash gains 20 percent as Paradigm founder reveals firm made ZEC investment, September 17, 2026
- [investingLive](investinglive.com) - Zcash surges by more than 45 percent this week as the 12 billion firm Paradigm discloses ZEC stake, September 18, 2026
- [Zcash Community Forum](forum.zcashcommunity.com) - NU7 Sentiment Polls Results, September 14, 2026
- [CoinGecko](coingecko.com) - Zcash (ZEC) price, market cap and 30-day change, accessed September 20, 2026
