Is ZCash Short Squeeze Brewing? Whales May Be Next to Capitulate

Zcash is leading other privacy coins as its price continues to rise despite the broader market-wide weakness. Zcash (ZEC) price rose past the $500 mark, though smart money was starting to bet against it.

The price action structure was bullish on the charts, though ZEC whales were starting to act differently. The current move in its price action suggests ZEC is likely to rise higher. However, what do the key details have to do with it?

Whale Shorts ZEC After Rally

The HyperLiquid wallet tracker shared data on whale activity. Onchain Lens on X showed what “neoyokio.eth” had been doing.

A $2 million USDC deposit was made on the day. Also, there were cross-account transfers of $788,101.48 and $760,463.11 USDC in December 2025. There was also a $418,697.14 USDC deposit in November and other small transfers.

Whale held a short ZEC position worth $2,070,473.13. The average entry price stood at $524.56, with a PnL of $2,257.4. The margin used for the trade was $1,035,236.56. Also, the liquidation price of this ZEC trade was above $981.

The PnL chart showed that it could peak at about $8 million in late 2025. Then, the price dropped to $1.9 million by December. This showed capital inflow for a bearish ZEC bet. However, historical returns had been very volatile.

ZCash Price Prediction: Is the Momentum Sustainable?

As expected on the charts, the Zcash price made a big bullish move after breaking through the $468 resistance zone. When writing, ZEC was trading at $535.97, and the price action had shifted into a sideways consolidation in the short term.

This meant that the price wasn’t moving in a clear direction, and the volatility had gone down. After a big vertical move, this cooling period was normal. However, if these levels did not hold, it could lead to a corrective breakdown.

If the price went down, the first important level to watch was the $512 minor support. If this area was broken, the $468 breakout zone, which was a major technical floor, would probably be tested again.

The next big target was still the $425 structural support if selling pressure rises. It’s important to stay neutral, as traders should stay away from FOMO and be careful of fake breakouts.

ZEC Crypto Liquidations

Lastly, the whale could be the next victim of short liquidation. More than $5 million in shorts were wiped out. However, only $1 million in longs had been liquidated.

This indicates that the market is out of balance right now. According to the CoinGlass liquidation data, there were about $6.34 million in total ZCash liquidations in the last 24 hours.

Shorts made up about $4.11 million of that, while longs made up about $2.22 million. This trend held over shorter time frames, especially on the 4-hour and 12-hour windows. There, short liquidations were the most common.

This kind of skew suggested that bears were overleveraged during the recent price rise. Also, they had to leave as the Zcash price went up. However, just because short liquidations were going up, it did not mean the trend would continue.

If the price stopped moving, long exposure could build up and flip the risk back to the downside. All in all, the data showed that there was a lot of volatility and many traders on both sides.