A whale holding a ZEC short position for half a month was forced to close at $1548, losing $10.68 million.
Another one is even worse — Garrett Jin, agent of the “BTC OG insider whale,” holds 38,000 ZEC shorts worth $59.33 million. The unrealized loss has already soared to $33.83 million. Liquidation price? $4790.
ZEC’s current price is only $1558. It’s still three times away from his liquidation price.
But the market is already discussing: will short covering become the fuel for the next rally?
What really keeps the shorts awake at night isn’t the price. It’s the tweet from three days ago by Paradigm co-founder Matt Huang.
In one sentence, he changed the valuation logic of ZEC.
Matt Huang publicly confirmed Paradigm holds ZEC, then added —
Zcash is “Bitcoin’s privacy complement.”
Note the wording. Not a competitor, but a complement.
This statement carries far more weight than any trading call.
Competitors fight for market share. Complements fill the missing piece in the Bitcoin ecosystem.
What does Bitcoin lack? Privacy. On-chain transfers are fully transparent, and institutional whales are often targeted by on-chain analytics firms. Zcash’s optional privacy — you can choose transparency or shielding — perfectly fills this gap.
Paradigm isn’t betting on ZEC’s price rising. It’s pricing the “compliant privacy” sector.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Look who’s sitting at the same table.
Zcash Open Development Lab completed over $25 million in seed funding. Investors include Paradigm, a16z crypto, Winklevoss Capital, Coinbase Ventures, plus Arthur Hayes’s family office.
a16z partner Ali Yahya put it more bluntly: “Privacy will be crypto’s biggest moat.”
Grayscale’s Zcash spot ETF (ZCSH) launched two weeks ago, with assets surpassing $500 million, holding over 550,000 ZEC, about 3% of circulating supply. Total inflows exceed $233 million, and it recently pushed a 3-for-1 stock split.
The ETF has locked 3% of circulating ZEC into the vault.
Meanwhile, Monero is being delisted from 73 centralized exchanges.
Same sector, two destinies. What’s the difference?
“Privacy” and “anonymity” seem like synonyms. To regulators, they are worlds apart.
Monero defaults to full anonymity; every transaction is untraceable. The EU’s MiCA and Dubai regulators have outright bans.
Zcash offers optional privacy. You can shield or choose to disclose to auditors. Compliance-friendly, not a gray area.
That’s why Coinbase Ventures dares to invest in ZODL, Grayscale dares to launch a ZEC ETF, and Paradigm dares to publicly support it.
Institutional capital isn’t afraid of privacy. It fears un-auditable privacy.
More noteworthy is ZODL’s origin. Founded by former ECC CEO Josh Swihart, it gathered the original engineering team who collectively left due to governance disputes — about 25 people, including chief scientist Chelsea Komlo and senior engineer Sean Bowe.
“We didn’t take any capital when we left, only the team and unfinished work.”
This group has been deeply involved in the privacy sector for ten years, choosing to rebuild in the darkest times, and now top VCs are lining up to fund them.
Now look at the technical side.
NU7 mainnet upgrade is scheduled to activate on November 5, reducing block time from 75 seconds to 25 seconds.
Token holders voted with 98.9% support to retain the Bitcoin-style halving mechanism. The next halving is expected at the end of 2028.
25-second blocks + halving retention. This is the most aggressive acceleration in Zcash’s history.
NU7 testnet launched on October 6. Less than two months remain until mainnet activation.
So back to that question: the one you should ask isn’t “Why are they buying?” but “Are you already late again?”
When a16z, Paradigm, and Coinbase Ventures all bet on the same sector, when Grayscale’s ETF locks 3% of circulating supply in the vault, when shorts are still holding on despite $33.83 million unrealized losses —
The signal is glaringly bright.
ZEC has risen 3009% in the past year. 183% in 30 days.
But have you considered whether this number reflects institutional recognition monetization or retail FOMO?
Paradigm invested in ZODL in March 2026. Grayscale’s ETF launched on August 25. ETF funds continue to flow in.
Institutions didn’t just enter today. They were already seated when you were still asking “Are privacy coins dead?”
Shorts are betting real money that ZEC won’t reach this level.
Paradigm tells you in one sentence: Zcash isn’t Bitcoin’s rival. It’s the missing puzzle piece Bitcoin needs most.
Who do you trust?
$BTC$ETH$ZEC#ZEC逼近1600美元，多空博弈升温
Disclaimer: OKX Orbit content is provided for informational purposes only. Learn more
