[DigitalToday reporter Yoonseo Lee (이윤서)] Zcash (ZEC) has broken a nine-year downtrend against bitcoin (BTC), creating a signal of a structural reversal.

U.Today, a blockchain media outlet, reported on Aug. 9 that the ZEC/BTC pair broke above the top of a long-term descending line last week and has continued to trade around 0.007904 bitcoin.

The move is seen as carrying more weight as a possible trend shift than as a short-term surge. The price is well above the 200-day simple moving average of 0.002567 bitcoin. Some interpret it as Zcash breaking out of a persistent pattern of weakness versus bitcoin that has continued since 2017.

Placeholder venture fund co-founder Chris Burniske (크리스 버니스키) said the crypto market's "old rule" has ended. He assessed the current Zcash up-cycle as fundamentally different from previous ones. He argued that strength versus bitcoin itself signals that past market scenarios are no longer working.

In the past, Zcash's short-term spikes were often interpreted as the final phase of overheating in the altcoin market. That was because a pattern of sharp declines repeated afterwards. This time, however, the price is holding above its 20-, 50-, 128- and 200-day moving averages, and Burniske described it as a "stable macro foundation." He also cited that capital flows are not the same as before.

A shift in the on-chain analytics environment was cited as a backdrop. The market sees bitcoin's characteristics as an anonymous asset having weakened as blockchain transparency increased. Burniske said the change could lead to a gradual move of liquidity into a full-privacy domain. He said that is also why privacy-focused Zcash is drawing attention again.

An old outlook by Barry Silbert, head of investment firm Digital Currency Group (DCG), was also brought up again. Market participants are watching two benchmarks when weighing the pace of inflows in the new market environment. The first is 1 percent of bitcoin's market capitalisation, a level Zcash already reached in 2025. The second is 10 percent of bitcoin's market capitalisation, which at current levels is about $130 billion.

Still, the market is not in a mood to immediately be confident in Zcash's standalone strength. Burniske also stressed that investors should maintain a cool-headed and practical approach. He said bitcoin still serves as the main engine and market maker for the entire industry, and its global influence alone can sharply curb independent trends in individual altcoins.

Even so, Zcash's move is being read as testing the existing formula that altcoins struggle to escape long-running weakness versus bitcoin. In particular, if privacy demand, expanding on-chain transparency and shifts in bitcoin-centred capital flows interact, Zcash's relative strength may not be limited to a temporary rebound, and that has emerged as a key point to watch going forward.

$ZECBTC continues to put in work that suggests this cycle could indeed be different for $ZEC https://t.co/kpfCTrVdCB pic.twitter.com/56InC0nGo2