Zcash Emerges From the Shadows: Privacy Coin Posts 60% Weekly Gain

Zcash price surged over 21% today, extending gains over the past week to over 60% as privacy coins see renewed demand from investors. After months of being the cryptocurrency equivalent of that quiet kid in the corner who never speaks up in class, Zcash just stood up and yelled "I'M STILL HERE" at the top of its lungs.

According to data from crypto.news, Zcash (ZEC) price rose nearly 23% to a three-month high of $383 on Friday, April 10. At this price, the token remains nearly 86% higher than its year-to-date low. For those keeping score at home, that's basically Zcash going from "are you even alive?" to "okay, maybe don't sleep on this one" in record time.

The token's gains have made it the best-performing crypto asset in daily and weekly timeframes, largely outpacing the rest of the market. Meanwhile, Bitcoin was probably sitting there thinking "I thought I was supposed to be the only one allowed to have green candles this week." Spoiler alert: nobody told Zcash about that rule.

Zcash's rally came amid strong interest from retail investors over the past couple of days. Data from CoinGlass shows demand drove its futures open interest to $818 million on Friday, up nearly 26% from levels recorded the previous day. Apparently, degens everywhere decided that privacy is the new yield farming, or maybe they just got tired of their transactions showing up on blockchain explorers like a LinkedIn feed for your finances.

If investor demand continues building, Zcash could likely sustain its uptrend as bulls try to push its price above $400 for the first time since January. The $400 level is basically Zcash's "I have returned from the dead" achievement badge, and traders are circling it like vultures waiting for the perfect entry.

A major catalyst driving investor interest has been growing attention toward its shielded liquidity pools, one of the core features ensuring transaction confidentiality. The Zcash dashboard shows over 31% of all ZEC coins are now held in shielded pools, representing nearly $1.96 billion in protected value. That's a lot of transactions going completely off-grid, kind of like when you enable airplane mode and pretend you're productive for a few hours.

Zcash price also gained momentum from a