In the last 24 hours, prices of numerous altcoins have risen, with the privacy-focused coin Zcash (ZEC) leading the gains, surging 47.1% to $836 before pulling back slightly and consolidating around $810. Similarly, Bitcoin Cash (BCH) rose 31.4% to $299.49 over the same period.
Zcash has been a top gainer this year: driven by attention to privacy issues and some events related to exchange-traded funds (ETFs), on August 21 alone its price rose 13%, pushing the token to a daily high of $663 and its market capitalization to the $10.8 billion mark.
A consistent growth catalyst has been Grayscale's pursuit of converting its Zcash Trust into a spot exchange-traded fund (ETF), which would make it the first privacy-feature cryptocurrency ETF in the United States.
The rise in Zcash has not been without turbulence, as Bitcoin.com News reported earlier this month, the asset reached $686 before a wave of coordinated selling triggered $28 million in liquidations.
Bitcoin Cash, Cardano, and Dogecoin Join the Rally
The gains were not limited to privacy-focused cryptocurrencies: Cardano ($ADA) rose 19.0% to $0.2563, while Dogecoin (DOGE) and the Whitebit token (WBT) each added 17.7%. Stellar (XLM) climbed 16.2%, Chainlink (LINK) rose 13.3%, and Hyperliquid (HYPE) gained 11.9% to $81.50.
Layer-1 (L1) tokens, payment-focused cryptocurrencies, and decentralized exchange (DEX) infrastructure assets showed gains within hours of each other—a dynamic that suggests injections of liquidity into the broader market rather than any single project-specific catalyst.
Hyperliquid's 11.9% rise to $81.50 came as the decentralized exchange (DEX) platform continued to attract attention for its perpetual futures trading volumes and token buyback mechanism (along with a presidential endorsement at a recent White House crypto gathering). Cardano's rise, meanwhile, followed a broader weekly uptrend for the network as traders focused on US policy clarity, with $ADA showing double-digit gains on both daily and weekly charts.
What's Fueling the Broad Rally
The overall bullish momentum has been supported by renewed enthusiasm from US President Donald Trump regarding the "Digital Asset Market Transparency Act," as well as the Treasury Department's announcement of an expanded long-term bond buyback program—a move that lowered yields and freed up liquidity for risk assets, including cryptocurrencies.
This liquidity built on a rally earlier in the week when Ether (ETH) jumped 18% to $2,250. However, analysts caution that rapid, broad-based altcoin rallies of this kind are often accompanied by significant leverage usage, which can amplify both the rise and any subsequent decline.
Finally, it's worth noting that trading volumes for the aforementioned tokens also spiked amid their price moves, indicating the rally was backed by real order flow rather than low weekend liquidity. Looking ahead, the combination of optimism around the "Transparency Act," Treasury-driven liquidity expansion, and renewed institutional interest in privacy assets appears to be allowing buyers to maintain control of the market.
The next test will be whether Congress can make tangible progress on crypto market structure legislation in the coming weeks—traders expect such a development to extend the rally.
