Zcash has entered a new phase of volatility after ZEC surged above $1,600, putting a previously stated $5,000 year-end prediction from Eli Ben-Sasson back in focus. The StarkWare co-founder and Zcash founding scientist says he still feels his forecast is on track, although he acknowledged that he does not know exactly what is driving the latest move.
Ben-Sasson made the comments after pointing to his earlier prediction that ZEC would trade above $1,200 by September 25. ZEC had already moved well beyond that level, reaching an intraday high around $1,680 on September 23 before pulling back sharply.
ZEC Moves Sharply Above $1,600
The latest rally has been unusually fast. Historical market data shows ZEC closed around $1,630 on September 22 after gaining more than 10%, then reached roughly $1,680 during September 23 trading before ending the day near $1,498 after an 8% decline.
That price action means ZEC has already moved several hundred dollars above the $1,200 level Ben-Sasson identified earlier in September. It also shows the level of volatility traders are currently facing, with large intraday swings occurring even as the broader trend remains substantially higher than earlier in the month.
ZEC was trading around the $1,500 area on September 24 in the market data reviewed for this article. The move from roughly $1,000 at the start of September to above $1,600 represents a rapid repricing, but the subsequent pullbacks show that the rally has not been a straight-line advance.
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Ben-Sasson has not presented the $5,000 figure as a formal valuation model. His latest comment was framed informally, with the Zcash co-founder saying he has “no fucking clue” why the price has surged and asking the community for explanations.
That distinction matters because the $5,000 figure is a personal market prediction rather than a projection supported by a published financial model. Reaching $5,000 from the roughly $1,500 area would require ZEC to more than triple from current levels, making the prediction dependent on another substantial move.
What Could Drive a $5,000 ZEC Price?
One factor attracting attention is renewed demand for Zcash’s privacy technology. The network allows users to make shielded transactions that conceal transaction details from public observers, while maintaining verifiable blockchain activity. Starknet has also recently highlighted growing interest in Zcash privacy and explored potential infrastructure connecting Zcash with Starknet.
Market access has also expanded. A physically backed Zcash exchange-traded product from 21Shares began trading on Euronext Paris and Amsterdam on September 22, providing another regulated brokerage route for European investors. Reports also indicate that shielded Zcash activity has recently reached its highest levels in several years.
Those developments provide possible explanations for increased attention, but they do not establish that institutional demand or privacy usage alone will push ZEC toward $5,000. Crypto prices can move for several overlapping reasons, including positioning, liquidity, exchange flows, derivatives activity and changes in market sentiment.
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Ben-Sasson’s connection to Zcash gives his prediction particular attention within the community. Starknet describes him as a founding scientist of Zcash and a co-inventor of the technology that became central to zero-knowledge systems, while he later co-founded StarkWare and helped develop Starknet.
His prediction should nevertheless be separated from his technical credentials. Being involved in the creation of Zcash does not provide a mechanism for determining its future market price, and his latest comments themselves acknowledge that he does not have a definitive explanation for the rally.
For ZEC to reach $5,000 by the end of 2026, the market would need to sustain the sharp momentum seen during September while attracting enough additional capital to support a substantially higher valuation. Whether that happens will depend on demand, liquidity, broader crypto-market conditions and the continued development and adoption of Zcash’s privacy ecosystem.
For now, the measurable development is that ZEC has already exceeded Ben-Sasson’s earlier $1,200 milestone, while the $5,000 prediction remains an unconfirmed future scenario. The next few weeks will determine whether the current rally develops into a sustained trend or becomes another period of extreme volatility in one of crypto’s most closely watched privacy assets.
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