Zcash whale buys $32M after 34% drop – Can ZEC defend $1000?

A whale investor has doubled Zcash holdings in the past two days to $66.75M. According to Arkham data, the large investor (address t1ZLg) bought $21.8M and $10.2M ZEC across Binance and Kraken, respectively, over the weekend. 

This effectively doubled the investor’s ZEC holdings from 24K to 54.4K (worth $66.75M) in two days. On-chain data revealed that the address began aggressive ZEC accumulation in mid-September. 

The whale activity slowed for a while around 22nd-26th September but picked up aggressively at the end of the month. The activity slowdown coincided with the ZEC price peak near $1700. 

But the whale’s subsequent steady bids throughout October showed he was grabbing the ZEC’s discounted window as the price dropped by 34% in the past few days. This raises the question: Is there broader whale bidding to trigger ZEC price recovery? 

Zcash: Are other whales also buying the ZEC dip?

Surprisingly, most whales were not bullish on ZEC, at least as of press time. According to CryptoQuant, the recent pullback was attracting ‘normal’ spot order sizes (grey bubble maps). 

In most cases, big whale orders (denoted by green bubble maps) tend to coincide with easing pullbacks or triggering strong rebounds. This happened in March, August, and September. 

However, during the recent pullback, the indicator didn’t flag many big whale orders. As such, this could reduce the chances of a strong rebound or ZEC defending the $1000 support level. 

A similar picture was painted across the Futures market. According to Nansen, whale interest dropped by 14% in the past seven days across Hyperliquid’s derivatives market. However, smart money traders were up 134%. 

This indicates that some sophisticated players still view the recent discount window as a buying opportunity, like the whale that bought ZEC across Binance and Kraken. 

But the Net Position Change was not green to underscore an overall bullish leaning. In other words, broader whale positioning was still somewhat cautious across the spot and derivatives market. 

Spot ZEC ETF extends weekly outflows

And this cautious positioning is understandable ahead of this week’s U.S. inflation data (CPI), which could trigger another macro volatility and increase liquidation risks. 

In fact, even institutional investors have been in a risk-off mode since late September, as illustrated by two consecutive weeks of outflows from U.S. ZEC ETFs ($124M net outflows). 

As such, the $1,100 and $1000 support levels could be retested or cracked if the bearish pressure deepens in the coming days. 

Overall, the recent 34% pullback seems like a great buying opportunity. However, the upcoming macro volatility still has whales and institutional investors on edge. 

Final Summary

• Zcash whale doubled its ZEC holdings to $66.75M after buying the recent dip 
• Broader whale activity was weak, and spot ZEC ETF outflows hit $123M amid macro uncertainty