Zcash holders approved $8.39 million in retroactive grants for completed work, funding 17 of 37 proposals this quarter with 2.18 million ZEC participating in the vote, representing 10.4% of Zcash's fixed 21 million coin supply. The largest single vote involved $1.5 million for Taylor Hornby after his discovery of the critical Orchard vulnerability, with two $750,000 grants covering the original bug bounty and community nomination. Zcash co-founder Zooko Wilcox described the vote as evidence for Zcash's system of coinholder-directed funding and governance, though his assessment represents his own view on the model's strength. The next grant round is scheduled from October 30 through November 13, followed by review and voting from December 17-29. Zcash is currently trading near $1,336, with CoinGecko showing a 21% decline from the September 26 peak of $1,653.12, remaining below the $1,600-$1,700 area reached during September's rally.
Grayscale's Zcash ETF recorded $93.56 million in outflows for the week ended October 2, marking its first negative week since late August and the first losing week since launching in August. According to SoSoValue, daily redemptions reached $30.25 million on September 30 and another $26.93 million on October 2 alone, with total net assets falling to approximately $751 million while cumulative net inflows remained positive at around $212.56 million. The fund had attracted around $271 million in cumulative net inflows by mid-month, including approximately $98.2 million during its strongest week, before the recent reversal. Zcash ETFs have lost roughly 23% from their recent peak near $1,690, with the price decline coinciding with the withdrawal activity. These figures suggest that ETF investors are not supporting the cryptocurrency during its current correction, adding pressure to the broader market sentiment.
Zcash faces a critical support test at $1,270-$1,300 after the latest rally may be running out of steam, with sellers continuing to push the price past previous support levels. The move below $1,600 shifted focus towards $1,400, where buyers now face their first major test after the sharp decline from $1,680. The four-hour chart's longer-term moving average also sits near the $1,270-$1,300 area, making it an important test of demand and a level where buyers recently stepped in. According to AMBCrypto, there is much more to this pullback than just another normal pullback, as significant selling activity occurred in conjunction with the breakdown, fueling additional downward pressure as the price approaches each successive level of support. If that support breaks, ZEC price could fall toward $1,155, roughly 12% below current levels. CoinGecko shows ZEC trading near $1,336 at the time of research, down 21% from the September 26 peak of $1,653.12, with the token trading between roughly $1,304 and $1,400 during the latest period.
Momentum has cooled significantly with the 14-day Relative Strength Index standing near 53.41, down from the overbought readings reached during the September rally and below its moving average near 64.49. The RSI moving average remains higher at around 64.49, indicating that while ZEC is not in oversold territory, it shows less buying strength than earlier in the month. On the daily chart, ZEC has slipped slightly below its 20-day middle Bollinger Band near $1,410.33, with the upper band at $1,772.26 and lower band at $1,048.41. MACD is weaker in the short term, with the MACD line at 120.13 compared to a signal line near 153.14, leaving the histogram negative at roughly -33.01, pointing to fading bullish momentum while ZEC consolidates below its September highs. Price action around 1,390-1,410 therefore remains the first technical area to watch before lower support comes into focus.
Security work took most of the largest grants in the Q3 2026 Coinholder-Directed Retroactive Grants round, with $1.95 million approved for ZODL's Q1 and Q2 core protocol development and $1.203 million for ValarGroup's Ironwood work. Additional security funding included $738,942 for formal verification of the Ironwood zk-SNARK circuit and $599,000 for external audit costs. Other funded security work covered $425,000 for five critical Zebra consensus-divergence vulnerabilities and a $400,000 award connected with a temporary detectable unlimited-mint-and-sell exploit. The Orchard vulnerability was discovered by Taylor Hornby on May 29 while reviewing Orchard with traditional security techniques and Anthropic's Opus 4.8 model, affecting Orchard's zero-knowledge proof circuit and potentially allowing counterfeit ZEC creation without obvious onchain trace. Twenty proposals were rejected or failed to receive funding, while the approved projects captured most of the dollars because the largest security and protocol-development proposals received strong support.
