Bitcoin Recovers Toward $79,000 While Zcash Rallies on a $500 Million ETF

Bitcoin fell to about $77,666 on Tuesday before recovering to nearly $78,900 during Asian trading hours on Wednesday, leaving it little changed on the day, CoinDesk reported. It has been trading within a range of roughly $77,200 to $82,100 and met selling near the top of that range.

Zcash moved in the other direction. The token rose above $1,180 after Grayscale said its exchange-traded fund had passed $500 million in assets and had accumulated close to 3% of the circulating supply, two weeks after listing on NYSE Arca. The token traded above $1,000 in early September, as Cryptonomist reported, a level it had not held for years.

The divergence is instructive. On a day when the United States and Iran exchanged strikes and crude approached $100, bitcoin did not behave the way a monetary hedge would be expected to. It traded like a liquidity-sensitive asset, moving with broader risk appetite. What did move was a token whose rally is being driven by a specific mechanical force, namely a new fund removing supply from the market. That is a story about fund flows, not monetary demand, and flows can reverse as quickly as they arrive.

Gold, meanwhile, was slightly lower on the week at $4,367.90 an ounce on September 8, per Trading Economics, even with a war premium in oil.