Real Vision chief executive Raoul Pal has suggested that Zcash’s (CRPTO:ZEC) sharp price rise may be driven by short-term capital rotation rather than the start of a sustained bull market.
Pal said the decisive signal for Zcash will be whether it can maintain strength when the wider cryptocurrency market resumes an upward trend.
Do I need that asset to say I was in earliest? I don’t really, Raoul Pal said during an appearance on the “When Shift Happens” podcast.
He explained that current price action supports the idea that investors are rotating capital into Zcash rather than committing to a long-term structural uptrend.
We can’t prove it until the whole market goes up and it continues to trend and not a rotation, Raoul Pal said.
Pal added that Zcash must demonstrate resilience during broader market rallies to confirm whether its momentum is sustainable.
Zcash has recorded substantial gains in 2025, rising more than 699% since the beginning of the year, according to CoinMarketCap data.
Despite these gains, the privacy-focused token has struggled in recent weeks, with its price falling by roughly 37% over the past 30 days.
Pal said a key technical factor to monitor is whether Zcash can establish a solid base following its recent surge.
What you want to see is whether it finds a base and then starts pulling up again, Raoul Pal said.
He also noted that he is not currently looking to buy Zcash at existing price levels amid elevated volatility.
I’m not sure I’m going to chase it, but I might buy it in the next down cycle, Raoul Pal said.
Zcash has continued to post gains at times when the broader cryptocurrency market has been under pressure.
The token’s market capitalisation climbed from under $1 billion in August to a peak above $7 billion in early November.
Market observers have linked renewed interest in Zcash to a broader shift towards privacy-focused digital assets.
Crypto exchange XT Exchange said growing demand for anonymity has pushed privacy tokens into the spotlight.
Zcash saw a sharp rally in late October after crypto entrepreneur Arthur Hayes suggested the asset could eventually reach $10,000.
Institutional interest has also increased, adding to speculation around Zcash’s longer-term prospects.
Grayscale Investments filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission in late November to convert its Zcash trust into a spot exchange-traded fund.
The filing followed Grayscale’s earlier launches of spot ETFs tied to Bitcoin (CRYPTO:BTC), Ether (CRYPTO:ETH), Dogecoin (CRYPTO:DOGE) and XRP (CRYPTO:XRP).
At the time of reporting, Zcash price was $407.97.