Rate hikes are supposed to be the wet blanket on speculative assets. Overnight into Thursday, crypto mostly shrugged—and Zcash decided to sprint.
According to CoinDesk, ZEC jumped roughly 23% over 24 hours to about $1,369 as Bitcoin edged under 1% higher near $76,258. Solana added nearly 3% toward $100. BNB and Hyperliquid’s HYPE tacked on more than 2%, while ether, XRP, and dogecoin rose in the 1–2% range. Stock futures joined the party: S&P 500 futures +0.6%, Nasdaq 100 futures +0.7%.
The macro headline was the Federal Reserve’s first interest-rate increase since 2023—a widely expected quarter-point move that lifted the policy range to 3.75%–4%.
Why a hike didn’t spoil the mood
Higher rates usually make cash and Treasuries look prettier than assets that pay you nothing for holding them. Bitcoin is the poster child of that critique. So why the bid?
Markets care less about the hike you already priced and more about the path you fear. The Fed’s median projection put the policy rate at 4.1% by the ends of both 2026 and 2027—consistent with roughly one more quarter-point bump this year, not a revenge tour. ViaBTC’s Jeff Ko told CoinDesk the move looked largely priced in, with investors reading the Fed as unwilling to start an aggressive tightening cycle while still talking tough on inflation.
The two-year Treasury yield, a favorite fidget spinner for rate expectations, eased a couple of basis points to about 4.71% after touching its highest level since 2024 in the prior session. When that yield exhales, risk assets often inhale.
In other words: the Fed raised, but the market heard “we’re not about to grind you into paste.”
The Zcash-specific plot twist
Broad relief doesn’t explain a 23% privacy-coin moonshot by itself. CoinDesk ties ZEC’s surge to comments from Paradigm co-founder Matt Huang, who discussed Zcash as “a private complement to Bitcoin” and disclosed that Paradigm owns ZEC.
That matters in a market where narrative oxygen is scarce and celebrity wallets still move order books. Zcash’s pitch has always been straightforward: send value without doxxing the amount or the counterparties on a public ledger. Holders recently backed proposals to make payments faster while keeping scheduled cuts to new coin creation—Bitcoin-flavored scarcity with a privacy coat of paint.
Huang also argued for continued developer funding and a governance mix that doesn’t treat coin-holder votes as the only adult in the room. That’s inside-baseball for protocol politics, but it signals serious capital is still willing to put its name next to privacy tech after years of regulatory side-eye.
Zoom out from the candle
This bounce arrives a day after U.S. crypto ETF flows got punched in the face following the Senate’s failed Clarity Act cloture vote—a story Geeknewz already chewed on. One session of ETF outflows does not erase a Fed-night rebound; it does remind you how bipolar the tape is when policy and politics both have their hands on the volume knob.
Privacy coins remain a niche with outsized volatility. A Paradigm shout-out can light the fuse; liquidity can snuff it just as fast. Bitcoin above $76K with a “one more hike maybe” Fed path is friendlier weather, not a permanent climate.
Still, the tableau is hard to ignore: first Fed hike in three years, stocks bid, majors green, and the old privacy veteran ripping double digits because a top-tier investor said the quiet part—privacy might be a feature Bitcoin never shipped.
For traders, the practical read is simpler than the think-piece version. A “priced in” hike with a shallow dots path is risk-on weather until the next CPI print or balance-sheet surprise rewrites the story. Zcash’s move adds a second layer: when a brand-name investor publicly hugs a privacy narrative, reflexive flows pile in first and ask liquidity questions later. That can be lucrative for an afternoon and brutal for a weekend.
None of this resolves the longer regulatory shadow over privacy tech, nor does it mean Bitcoin suddenly wants a private twin on every exchange listing. It does mean that on the first Fed-hike night in years, the market’s loudest candle wasn’t the obvious blue-chip ticker—it was the coin built to hide the receipt.
Source: CoinDesk — Zcash jumps 23% as bitcoin and major tokens rise despite Fed’s first hike since 2023