Cryptocurrency Zcash (ZEC) surged about 20% over the past 24 hours to reach the $1,000 level on September 4, extending a rally that has nearly doubled the privacy-focused digital currency’s value over the past month.
ZEC briefly climbed to around $1,023 after opening the day near $828, Caliber.Az reports, citing CoinDesk.
Its 24-hour trading volume reached approximately $1.2 billion, while its market capitalisation approached $17 billion.
The sharp rise caught traders betting against ZEC off guard, with about $36.6 million worth of leveraged positions liquidated over the past 24 hours.
Short positions accounted for roughly $34.5 million of those liquidations, according to liquidation data.
A short liquidation occurs when a rising asset price forces an exchange to close a bearish position because the trader no longer has enough collateral to maintain it.
Such liquidations can further accelerate a rally, as closing a short position requires traders to buy back the asset.
ZEC has gained about 94% over the past 30 days and more than 2,300% over the past year, placing it among the strongest-performing large crypto assets over those periods.
Open interest in ZEC futures also rose to around 2.3 million ZEC, worth approximately $2.3 billion, as traders increased their derivatives positions alongside the spot-market rally.
Zcash was launched in 2016 and is essentially a copy of Bitcoin, but with enhanced privacy features. Unlike Bitcoin, where all transactions are visible on a public ledger, Zcash allows users to conceal the sender, recipient and transaction amount through encryption. At the same time, the system provides “viewing keys” that allow users to voluntarily disclose transaction data to regulators or auditors.
By Bakhtiyar Abbasov
