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This week, the Zcash vs Bitcoin pair (ZEC/$BTC) made a historic technical breakout that officially confirmed the end of the crypto market's old rules, according to Placeholder venture fund co-founder Chris Burniske. After confidently breaking out of a prolonged nine-year downtrend, the asset consolidated at 0.007904 $BTC.
This value not only exceeds the 200-period SMA at 0.002567 $BTC but also definitively breaks the pattern of continuous Zcash capitulation against Bitcoin that has persisted since 2017.
For Burniske, the current bullish cycle for Zcash is fundamentally different from all previous ones. The strength the coin is demonstrating against $BTC indicates that the old market scenarios no longer work.
Unlike in previous years, when short-term Zcash pumps marked only the final stage of overheating and an imminent collapse of the altcoin market, its current hold above a cascade of key moving averages — the 20-, 50-, 128- and 200-period MAs — is forming a stable macroeconomic foundation. Capital no longer behaves as it did before.
The main reason the old rules are dead is the evolution of transparency. Modern on-chain analysis tools have effectively stripped Bitcoin of its original status as anonymous money, making a gradual migration of liquidity into the full-privacy sector inevitable.
Zcash eyes 10% of Bitcoin
In this context, a long-standing forecast by Barry Silbert, head of Digital Currency Group (DCG), has once again become extremely relevant. Assessing the speed at which funds are flowing under the new market realities, analysts identify two key targets for changing the global balance of power:
- Target No. 1: 1% of $BTC's market capitalization, a level the token already reached in 2025.
- Target No. 2: 10% of $BTC's market capitalization, currently equivalent to $130 billion.
Despite the emerging prospects for relative gains at the late stage of the cycle, Chris Burniske continues to urge investors to maintain a cool-headed, pragmatic approach — Bitcoin remains the main engine and market maker of the entire industry.
Its global influence can severely correct any independent altcoin trends. However, Zcash's current structural reversal is attempting to prove that, in 2026, the old rules of capitulation no longer apply.