Zcash Price Hits $979 as Mining Profitability Surges
Zcash (ZEC)
Editor:
Eugene Serbin
news.bitcoin.com reported that Zcash (ZEC) reached an intraday high of $979 on Thursday afternoon, marking a 17% daily gain. Over the past two weeks, the privacy coin has risen 64.7%, while its six-month performance stands at approximately 353%. This price surge has driven the network's hashrate to peak levels, currently operating at 27.87 GSol/s, which represents 91% of its all-time high.
Mining profitability has become a top driver for proof-of-work algorithms, with Bitmain’s Z15 Pro emerging as the most profitable ASIC miner. The Z15 Pro generates 840 KSol/s and is estimated to yield $59.09 in daily profit, though units are sold out at the manufacturer. Resellers are offering the Z15 Pro at a premium above the $4,999 list price, while the older Z15 model produces around 420 KSol/s for roughly $29.25 daily.
Bitmain also offers the Z15K, which produces 525 KSol/s and earns an estimated $35.14 per day, though it is similarly unavailable directly from the shop. The influx of hashpower is driven by these substantial mining rewards, though the report notes that hashpower can disappear quickly if the price takes a hit. The broader crypto market also saw its total valuation rise to $2.73 trillion on Thursday.
How the market reacted
Whalio's own Binance spot order flow for ZEC, measured when this story was written up on 4 September 2026. Not the outlet's figures.
Zcash is currently trading at $952.69, with a 24-hour buy ratio of 51.5% indicating a near-even split between buyers and sellers. However, short-term momentum shows divergence, as the 1-hour buy ratio sits at 58.2% while the 4-hour ratio drops to 43.0%. The 1-hour volume delta is positive at +$1,241,146, suggesting immediate buying interest, whereas the 4-hour delta is negative at -$3,177,550, indicating recent selling pressure. Over the full 24 hours, the volume delta is +$5,177,128, but the cumulative CVD at close is -$3,399,746, showing that net selling pressure outweighed buying pressure over the day. This means that while there was active trading volume of $234,054,017, the net flow of capital was out of the asset. Buying pressure appears to be building in the very short term but has faded over the last four hours.
The latest daily buy ratio of 48.8% sits at the 35th percentile of the last 281 days, against a median of 50.1% - ordinary for this coin.
Was that an ordinary day?
The same Binance spot measurements for ZEC, averaged over the days leading up to the story.
Over the preceding week, the average buy ratio was 50.6%, making today’s 24-hour ratio of 51.5% only marginally higher by 0.8 percentage points. Trading volume today was 1.61 times the weekly average, indicating significantly higher activity than usual. This elevated volume contributed to a total volume delta of +$17,216,328 over eight days, driving an 8-day price change of +17.6%. While the daily buy ratio is slightly above average, the volume spike suggests this is an unusually active day for the coin compared to its typical trading patterns.