Zcash fell 11.08% to $1,065.32 on Sept. 10, the steepest decline among the 100 largest crypto assets, as a session-low close overwhelmed the supply squeeze created by the ZCSH spot ETF launch.
The token opened with a downside gap of roughly 2.5% and never recovered, sliding $141.37 on the day with intraday volatility of 6.82%, according to Traders Union data timestamped 03:55 UTC. The move came despite ZEC trading above its 20-day ($920.28), 50-day ($666.31) and 200-day ($463.99) moving averages — a structure that remains intact but is now being tested from above rather than below.
"Traders should be cautious, as any decisive move below $953.07 would undermine the bullish setup and invite further losses," Anton Kharitonov, an analyst at Traders Union, said. He pointed to overbought readings from the Relative Strength Index at 79.87, alongside the Commodity Channel Index and Stochastic RSI, as evidence that momentum was already stretched before the selling began.
The technical picture is unusually split. MACD and the Average Directional Index still flash buy signals, and Bull/Bear Power remains positive, yet the close near the session low suggests sellers controlled the final hours. Immediate resistance sits at $1,176, with the $953.07 level — the floor Kharitonov flagged — now the line separating a pullback from a trend break. Traders Union's model projects ZEC fluctuating between $953.07 and $1,524 over the next five days.
The selloff stands in contrast to the fundamental backdrop. Grayscale converted its Zcash Trust into the spot ETF ZCSH on NYSE Arca on Aug. 25, gathering more than $500 million in assets under management. DCG International Investments contributed about $100 million of ZEC through an in-kind transaction, with third-party inflows reaching roughly $70 million, and ZCSH began offering options trading. Zcash returned to the top 10 crypto assets by market capitalization on that demand.
Viktoras Karapetjanc, also at Traders Union, reads the drop as profit-taking rather than a reversal. "In my view, the combination of heightened options activity and robust fundamentals suggest ZEC offers attractive setups for bullish participants in the coming days," he said, noting the token still trades above all major moving averages with a tight circulating supply.
The counterweight came from the opposite end of the leaderboard. Bitway (BTW) gained 10.97% over the same 24-hour window to rank as the session's top gainer, a double-digit advance in a thinly traded asset that illustrates how concentrated speculative demand has become. Sholanke Dele, a market strategist at Traders Union, described the tape as mixed, with optimism checked by overbought conditions and aggressive selling. "Investors should not ignore downside risk, especially if ZEC breaks below $953.07 under continued pressure," he said.
For leveraged long holders, the arithmetic is unforgiving. A move from $1,065.32 to the $953.07 support would represent a further 10.5% decline, enough to force liquidations across positions opened during the ETF-driven run above $1,200. The 12-month forecast of $5,633.05 published by Traders Union implies a recovery of more than 400% from current levels, but that projection assumes the $953.07 floor holds. A weekly range of $997.00 to $1,296.02 frames the near-term battleground, and ZEC has already traded below the top of that band for two consecutive sessions.
Privacy-coin peers face the same question. Zcash's slide is the sharpest in the segment, and a sustained break of $953.07 would likely pressure related tokens as traders reassess how much of the ETF bid was structural versus momentum-driven.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.