Holders unshield more than 200,000 ZEC in early 2026, raising sell-off concerns

Beincrypto reports that in the early days of 2026 holders unshielded over 200,000 Zcash (ZEC), roughly 1.2% of circulating supply, moving the coins into circulation as privacy coins underperformed the broader market. On-chain data explain that unshielding converts funds from shielded pools to transparent pools to enable trading or selling.

Arkham data indicate the holder deposited the ZEC into shielded pools just over two weeks earlier before unshielding, and total shielded ZEC fell to about 4.86 million after peaking above 5 million. LookOnChain reported a whale sent 74,002 ZEC (about $35.75 million) to Binance one day after the large unshielding event; investor Ted said such moves are rarely random and often signal positioning or liquidity preparation.

CoinAnk data show significant derivative capital outflows and rising short positions on ZEC, while market metrics recorded TOTAL3 rising from $825 billion to $885 billion (a 7% gain) as ZEC’s price moved from $530 to $490 (about a 7% drop). Artemis data list privacy coins such as Monero and Dash among the weakest-performing sectors, even as Grayscale has highlighted Zcash as promising and expects the privacy sector to grow in 2026 with rising institutional interest.

Key Topics

Crypto, Zcash, Shielded Pools, Binance, Grayscale, Arkham