In brief

• Zcash trades at $1,333.50, down 7.29% on the day and about 21% below its $1,698.00 peak, after climbing roughly 253% from a $480.72 base.
• Grayscale's Zcash ETF recorded a $30.25 million net outflow on Sept. 30, against $268 million in cumulative net inflows since launch.
• It's a rough stretch, but the charts suggest ZEC still has room to run.

Zcash is having a rough Thursday. ZEC is trading at $1,333.50, down 7.29% on the day, with about three hours left before the daily candle closes.

That puts the privacy coin roughly 21% below the $1,698.00 peak it hit in late September. It also shows how far ZEC had run: the coin climbed about 253% from a $480.72 base to that high.

The wider market isn't offering a lifeline. Bitcoin spiked to $85,600 on Wednesday after softer-than-expected PCE inflation data, then quickly gave it back. The 10-year Treasury yield closed at 5.29%, and the odds of an October Federal Reserve rate hike have fallen from 70% to below 50%, according to CME FedWatch.

Start with the ETF money. Grayscale launched its Zcash ETF, ticker ZCSH, on Aug. 25, and it had attracted $233 million in net inflows by mid-September.

Yesterday, the fund recorded a $30.25 million net outflow, leaving cumulative net inflows at almost $268 million. Its 3-for-1 share split also took effect that morning.

The Bitget hack is another thing to consider, especially when it comes to sentiment analysis. A group of hackers stole about $387 million from the exchange on Sept. 24, up from an initial $351.6 million estimate once transfers on the Zcash and Tron blockchains were counted. Bitget's CEO says the attack is consistent with North Korean hacker groups, but firm attribution is still pending.

This is bad news for a cryptocurrency wanting to cement a good reputation in Wall Street.

On Wednesday, blockchain investigator ZachXBT flagged 2,746 ZEC, about $3.9 million, moving from hack-linked addresses into Zcash's shielded pool, where senders, receivers and amounts are hidden.

The hack is not likely the trigger behind today's drop, and $3.9 million is relatively small, but it's not helping either.

What the chart says

Overall, Zcash is still strongly bullish, but its price movement over the last five days is pointing towards a steep correction.

The Relative Strength Index, or RSI, is a 0-to-100 gauge of buying and selling momentum. At 50.2, it's dead neutral, so ZEC is neither stretched nor washed out. Technically speaking, it is a relief after the previous overbought readings that it was registering during its rally.

The Average Directional Index, or ADX, reads 52.0. ADX measures how strong a trend is, not which way it points, and anything above 25 counts as a real trend. A 52 is very strong, but it mostly reflects the vertical run, and it lags, so it can stay elevated while price falls.

Exponential moving averages, or EMAs, track the average price while weighting recent days more heavily. The 50-day EMA is still above the 200-day, which keeps the trend structure bullish on paper.

If the slide continues, those lines will converge, which is usually how a trend change first shows up. That said, for that to occur, Zcash would need a sustained, rapid crash—which is unlikely to happen soon.

Rally over, or a dip to buy?

A 21% drop after a 253% sprint isn't unusual. In June, ZEC dropped from $635 to an intraday low of $309 when a critical vulnerability in its shielded pool was disclosed. It then went on to climb past $1,600.

So the chart reads like a correction, not a collapse, at least for now. The trend indicators haven't flipped, but momentum has cooled and the ETF just posted a $30.25 million outflow.

A daily close below $1,233.00 would put the golden zone in play, while a reclaim of $1,410.72 would put the run back on track.

The views and opinions expressed by the author are for informational purposes only and do not constitute financial, investment, or other advice.