$1,332: Zcash is the only one of the ten largest coins with a weekly gain

Zcash costs around $1,332 on Monday morning, a good eight percent more than 24 hours earlier. The remarkable part is not the daily gain but the company it keeps: among the ten largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalisation, Zcash is the only one in positive territory over seven days. Bitcoin has given up 2.6 percent in the same week, Ether 5.9 percent and Solana 7.1 percent.

Holders in Germany face two dates and one deadline that have nothing to do with the price. On October 20 the Zcash developers decide when the NU7 network upgrade takes effect on the main net. November 5 is the date in the air. And anyone still holding a balance in the network's oldest shielded pool has to move it beforehand, otherwise it can no longer be spent afterwards. This article places the price level in context, shows the count behind it and names the points that matter before the two dates.

Zcash at $1,332: daily high $1,348, daily low $1,262

The price stood at $1,332 on October 12, 2026. The day opened at $1,275, the high of the past 24 hours is $1,348 and the low $1,221. The range of a single day therefore comes to roughly $127, about a tenth of the price. A tight limit order easily misses in a market like this.

Two levels can be justified from this day. On the upside it is the high at $1,348, where the price turned during the morning. On the downside it is the daily low at $1,262, which sits above the 24-hour low of $1,221. As long as the daily low holds, the upward move of recent days stays intact. For context on the upside: on September 20, 2026, cryptoticker.io reported a Zcash price above $1,500. The coin remains a good distance from that level, despite the strong week relative to the rest of the market.

Our own count: only four of the 25 largest coins hold a weekly gain

That Zcash stands out this week can be counted. For this article we went through the 40 largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalisation, removed stablecoins and wrapped variants such as Wrapped Bitcoin or staked Ether derivatives, and compared the seven-day change across the remaining 25. The result: four of them are up. NEAR leads with 17.9 percent, followed by Avalanche with 0.6 percent, Canton with 0.5 percent and Zcash with 0.4 percent. The other 21 are down, most clearly Uniswap with 14.4 percent, Bitcoin Cash with 9.9 percent and Stellar with 9.3 percent. cryptoticker.io compiled this analysis itself on October 12, 2026.

For placing the price in context, the count matters more than the daily gain. An eight percent gain in a day occurs several times a quarter in a coin of this size. A week in which only four of 25 large assets are up at all is rarer. At the same time the count puts the role of Zcash in perspective: at 0.4 percent for the week the lead over the rest of the market is slim, and NEAR is many times higher in the same week.

What happened among the ten largest assets

The further up the ranking, the clearer the picture. Over seven days Bitcoin stands at minus 2.6 percent, Ether at minus 5.9 percent, BNB at minus 5.2 percent, XRP at minus 6.8 percent, Solana at minus 7.1 percent and Tron at minus 1.0 percent. The stablecoins in this group barely move by construction, because they are pegged to the dollar. That leaves Zcash as the only asset in the group with a positive sign.

Monero down 1.3 percent: the privacy coins are not moving in step

An obvious explanation for the strength of Zcash would be a rotation into coins that can conceal transfers. Privacy coins are cryptocurrencies in which amounts, senders and recipients are technically not publicly visible. The explanation only half holds this week. Monero, the second large representative of the group, stands at minus 1.3 percent over seven days and plus 0.7 percent over 24 hours. The sector as a whole is therefore not running ahead of the market. What stands out is Zcash itself.

No single documented trigger for the daily gain can be named. Part of the backdrop is that several fund stories have revolved around ZEC in October: cryptoticker.io reported on outflows from a Zcash fund on October 5, 2026, and on the fee of a new Zcash fund on October 9, 2026. What is documented and plannable, by contrast, is the network's technical roadmap, and that has moved in recent days.

Shieldable amounts and proof of work: what separates Zcash from Bitcoin technically

Zcash launched in 2016 as an offshoot of the Bitcoin idea and creates new blocks through computing power, as Bitcoin does. Proof of work is the name of the procedure in which computers compete for the right to write the next block. The difference lies in visibility: alongside open addresses, Zcash has shielded pools. A shielded pool is an area of the blockchain in which amounts and participants are stored encrypted and become visible only with the matching key.

These pools have been renewed several times over the years. The oldest is called Sprout, the current one Orchard. Anyone whose ZEC has sat untouched in an old wallet for years may still hold them in the Sprout pool. The deadline discussed further below hangs on exactly that. For looking at the price, the second technical figure is the important one: the target interval between two blocks. So far it is 75 seconds, and it is the core of the coming upgrade.

The NU7 upgrade: block time from 75 to 25 seconds

NU7 is the seventh major network upgrade for Zcash. It is meant to cut the target interval between two blocks from 75 to 25 seconds, tripling how often the network closes a block. For holders that mainly means shorter waits on transfers, because confirmations arrive in quicker succession. Two further changes belong to the upgrade: version 4 transactions are switched off, and a new mechanism redirects part of the transaction fees into future block rewards. Cointelegraph described these points in detail on October 5, 2026.

Network Sustainability Mechanism

The mechanism goes by the name Network Sustainability Mechanism. It collects a share of the fees paid and pays it out later through block rewards instead of burning it. The background is the capped total supply of 21 million ZEC: the reward for writing new blocks falls with every halving, and the fees are meant to cushion that decline. For holders this is not a change to the money supply but to its distribution over time.

On the test net all of this is already running. The planned activation height, block 4,465,026, was reached on October 4, 2026, according to Cointelegraph, two days earlier than the developers expected. The test net is a copy of the network without real money, in which changes run before the real thing. What works there is therefore not yet active on the main net.

October 20 decides the date on the main net

Here is the point where the situation has shifted since our earlier articles. cryptoticker.io described the upgrade on September 18, 2026, and named November 5 as the date. As things stand, that day is a target and not a fixed date: the developers intend to decide on activation on the main net on October 20, 2026, and only then to set the block height at which NU7 takes effect. A block height is the sequential number of a block in the chain; upgrades are set to such a number rather than to a time of day.

In practice that means two things. First, November 5 is not a date you can mark in the calendar with certainty. Second, October 20 is the day the uncertainty ends. If you have to move a balance, waiting for the announcement is a mistake: the deadline is measured against activation, and on the current plan a good two weeks can sit between decision and activation.

The Sprout pool: old ZEC become immovable without a transfer

Switching off version 4 transactions has a consequence that affects only a small group, but affects it hard. A balance in the old Sprout pool can no longer be spent after NU7 is fully activated unless it has been moved into a current pool beforehand. The coins are not lost, they remain on the chain. Spending them without the matching transaction type is simply not possible.

You are affected if you sent ZEC to a shielded address years ago and have not touched it since. How to check whether your balance sits in the Sprout pool, and how the transfer works, was written up step by step by cryptoticker.io on September 23, 2026: Zcash Sprout pool: why you have to move old ZEC before November 5. Anyone whose ZEC sits on an exchange is not affected by the deadline, because the exchange manages the addresses.

Holding period and custody: what matters for ZEC now

The week with the price gain meets a tax rule that looks different in Germany than in many neighbouring countries. Gains from selling cryptocurrencies are tax-free after a holding period of one year; the basis is Paragraph 23 of the German Income Tax Act on private disposals. Sell within one year and the gain counts towards taxable income and is charged at your personal tax rate. For gains inside the one-year window a threshold of 1,000 euros a year applies, and it works as a limit rather than an allowance: above it, the entire gain is taxed.

One year of holding, a 1,000 euro threshold

In a coin that swings by several hundred dollars within four weeks, the holding period often decides more money than the entry price. The decisive figure is the date of each individual purchase, not the average of your holdings. Anyone who has bought across several years and several platforms needs a clean statement for that; which tools take on the task is shown by our comparison of crypto tax tools and portfolio trackers.

On custody the decision hangs on the deadline from the previous section. If the coins sit in your own wallet, you hold the keys and have to handle the move out of the Sprout pool yourself. If they sit on an exchange, the exchange takes the technical side and you carry the provider's risk in return. Both have their price, and with a coin that has shielded addresses there is the added point that not every wallet supports every pool.

Buying routes in Germany: regulated exchanges and the 2027 date

ZEC is tradable in Germany through crypto exchanges with European authorisation and through listed securities on the coin. The choice of route decides whether you hold the coins yourself or hold a paper in your portfolio that tracks the price. On the route through such a paper, cryptoticker.io set broker, fee and holding period side by side on September 22, 2026.

A further date lies further off and is the most important one for privacy coins: the European anti-money-laundering regulation obliges providers from July 2027 to hold no anonymous accounts and no crypto-assets with built-in anonymisation features. The duty is addressed to supervised companies, not to you as a holder. The practical consequence is mainly that the trading route through European providers may narrow by then, while holding in your own wallet is not covered. What that means for ZEC holdings was covered in detail by cryptoticker.io on August 23, 2026.

Zcash at $1,332: October 20 sets the next date

The week shows a coin pulling away from a weak market, and two dates that are independent of it. The price picture supplies the levels of $1,348 and $1,262. The network roadmap supplies October 20 as the decision day and a deadline for old balances. Three steps follow from that:

1. Check your holdings. Look at whether your ZEC balance sits in an old shielded address, and move it before NU7 is activated. Which wallet supports which pool is shown by our comparison of software wallets.
2. Settle the trading route. If you want to buy more or sell, compare the provider's fees and authorisation beforehand. An overview of the authorised platforms is in the comparison of regulated crypto exchanges.
3. Watch the levels. Note $1,348 on the upside and $1,262 on the downside, and put October 20 in the calendar. Tools that report levels like these are in the comparison of analytics platforms.

(As of October 12, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)