BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes has mapped out a $1,000 “first stop” for Zcash (ZEC), tying the next leg of its rally to a fresh wave of dollar liquidity and a maturing privacy narrative. He outlined the call in a Dec. 19 liquidity-focused interview and follow-up comments on X, which Cointelegraph later framed as a $1,000 initial target for ZEC’s ongoing breakout rally in a new report.
ZEC traded around $526.68 on Monday, up 1.77% over 24 hours, according to CoinMarketCap data, after spiking near $550 in the wake of Hayes’ remarks. That level keeps Zcash roughly 40% above its price before the interview and extends an 82% rebound from a local low near $300 just a month earlier, as Cointelegraph noted.
Hayes’ liquidity thesis behind the $1K call
Hayes argued that even if the Federal Reserve never brands its next moves as “quantitative easing,” a mix of short-term funding operations and reserve-management purchases will still push fresh liquidity into markets in 2026. In that setup, he expects privacy and zero-knowledge narratives to climb back to the front of the crypto trade, with Zcash acting as a liquid proxy for that bet.
Cointelegraph reported that Hayes’ ZEC thesis first surfaced in that Dec. 19 interview and echoed themes from his broader macro commentary on X, where he has tracked Treasury cash flows and central bank balance sheets for months. One of the posts linked by Cointelegraph points to this liquidity view rather than a simple chart call on his X feed.
Charts leave room for a push to four digits
Technicians have started to build around Hayes’ $1,000 line in the sand. Trader Crypto Curb highlighted ZEC breaking out of an ascending triangle while reclaiming its 50-week moving average as support, a structure they argued keeps a direct expansion toward the $1,000 zone on the table if privacy narratives stay in focus next year, according to the same Cointelegraph piece.
On lower timeframes, analyst Eric Van Tassel flagged a rising wedge and warned that price might tag the $400 area before any sustained run at four digits. He framed a drop toward that zone as a “normal reset” that would flush excess risk and clear space for a deeper trend move rather than kill the bullish structure outright, again speaking on X and cited by Cointelegraph.
“Due to the rapid ascent in price, $ZEC is now the 2nd largest *LIQUID* holding in @MaelstromFund portfolio behind $BTC.”
Hayes posted that line in early November when he revealed that his family office, Maelstrom, had pushed Zcash up to its second-largest liquid position, behind only Bitcoin. That disclosure came as ZEC ripped from around $75 to above $700 in just over a month, a move several outlets, including BTCC’s market blog, pegged at more than 700% off the lows.
From 520% October surge to a fresh macro trade
The new $1,000 “first stop” call lands on top of an already brutal squeeze. In mid-October, ZEC printed 520% monthly gains and pushed toward $300, its best level since late 2021, according to a prior technical breakdown from Cointelegraph that tracked a bull flag structure and record-high weekly RSI readings for the pair on ZEC/USDT.
Since then, flows have rotated out of majors and into privacy themes. Cointelegraph’s latest coverage of Hayes’ ZEC thesis pointed out that his October endorsement helped propel a run to roughly $775 before a sharp reset. The current leg from $300 to the low $500s now sits on top of that earlier rally, which leaves existing holders with thick cushions but also puts late longs in a volatile entry zone.
Regulation turns up the heat on the privacy trade
Hayes is leaning into Zcash while regulators harden their stance on anonymity. The European Union’s Anti-Money Laundering Regulation will ban regulated institutions from handling privacy-focused tokens and fully anonymous accounts starting in 2027, a framework that explicitly targets coins like Monero and Zcash, as Cointelegraph detailed in a separate review of the AMLR package on EU rules.
Exchanges already started to adjust long before that deadline. Binance, for example, pulled privacy pairs including ZEC for several European markets in 2023 to stay ahead of local expectations, according to contemporaneous reporting from Decrypt and other outlets. That pattern has pushed some liquidity toward venues with lighter oversight while shrinking on-ramps in strict jurisdictions.
Traders who follow Hayes’ call now face a split backdrop. ZEC trades as a high-beta bet on renewed dollar liquidity and a resurgent privacy story. At the same time, hard dates on the regulatory calendar and crowded long positioning leave little margin for error around levels like $400 on the downside and $1,000 on the upside.
