Zcash (ZEC) slides to two-month low near $963 as privacy coins sell off

Privacy coins led the slide

ZEC was also down 24.5% over seven days, according to CoinGecko data cited by Cointelegraph. Cointelegraph's summary described the move as a drop of nearly 15% amid a broader sell-off in privacy coins, though the figure it gave as of 12:20 pm UTC was 13.5%.

The category's combined market value fell about 7% over 24 hours. Zcash is still the heavyweight here; it accounts for about 60% of the $28 billion privacy coin category CoinGecko tracks.

It wasn't only privacy coins, though. Bitcoin was down 5.8% and Ether down 11.6% over the same period, per CoinGecko, and crypto prices fell further on Tuesday after US consumer prices rose 0.4% in October from the previous month (economists had forecast 0.3%).

NU7 went live days earlier

ZEC traded above $1,370 as recently as Friday.

That's the day Zcash activated its NU7 upgrade, which cut the target time between blocks from 75 seconds to 25 seconds to speed up transaction confirmations. It also made about 12,224 ZEC held in the network's original privacy pool unspendable. A related Cointelegraph headline said developers have already proposed another block time cut.

Zcash lets users send shielded payments that keep sender and recipient addresses and transaction amounts out of public view. It's also the coin that helped drive this year's privacy rally, gaining 138% in the 30 days to Sept. 7.

Grayscale's ETF and the $1 million pledge

Grayscale converted its Zcash Trust into a US spot exchange-traded fund that began trading on NYSE Arca on Aug. 25. Money's been leaving it. The fund recorded about $15 million in net outflows in November through Monday, following about $46 million in October, according to SoSoValue figures reported by Cointelegraph.

On Tuesday, Grayscale pledged $1 million to nonprofits and projects supporting the Zcash network, as reported by Cointelegraph. The price drop came a day later.