Zcash Rallies Ahead of Its NU7 Upgrade as Bitcoin Holds Above $80,000 and ETF Inflows Return

Zcash led gains among the largest cryptocurrencies on Thursday, November 5, 2026, rising about 12% over 24 hours ahead of a planned network upgrade, while bitcoin held above $80,000 as digital assets joined a broader market rebound after the U.S. midterm elections.

Zcash rose 11.7% to about $1,318 in the 24 hours to Thursday's Asian morning, with $1.2 billion of the token changing hands over the preceding day, CoinDesk reported, citing CoinGecko data. The Zcash network allows users to make encrypted payments that conceal the sender, recipient and amount.

Faster blocks with NU7

The rally came ahead of NU7, Zcash's next network upgrade, which is expected around Friday, according to CoinDesk. The upgrade will cut the target time between blocks, the batches of transactions added to the blockchain, from 75 seconds to 25 seconds.

CoinDesk said the change could allow deposits to be credited sooner. For an exchange that waits for three confirmations, the expected wait would fall from nearly four minutes to about 75 seconds, assuming it keeps that requirement unchanged.

At the same time, a policy memo posted on the Zcash community forum on Wednesday warned that financial privacy and illicit finance could face greater scrutiny under the incoming Congress, CoinDesk reported. The memo made the case for private payments on the grounds of consumer safety, business confidentiality and civil liberties.

Bitcoin and major tokens

Bitcoin traded around $80,484 during Asian hours on Thursday, up 5.7% over 24 hours, after briefly falling toward $75,700 early Wednesday as election results came in, CoinDesk reported. Over the same period, ether rose 8% to about $2,425, XRP gained 4.7% to $1.31, solana climbed 5.9% to $96 and BNB added 4.2% to roughly $715.

"Bitcoin has rebounded in line with stocks as the market believes that the Iran conflict and high oil prices are more likely to come to an end," Jeff Mei, chief operating officer at crypto exchange BTSE, told CoinDesk. Brent crude fell more than 8% on Wednesday, and the S&P 500 gained 1.6%.

By about 7:06 a.m. ET, bitcoin was trading near $80,080 and ether near $2,413, according to Yahoo Finance data, while Zcash was near $1,313. Cryptocurrency prices trade around the clock and can change quickly.

ETF flows and derivatives

U.S. spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds took in $74.6 million on Wednesday, ending a three-day streak of outflows, according to Farside Investors data cited in a separate CoinDesk market report.

Liquidations of crypto futures positions rose 53% to $715 million over 24 hours, with about 65% of them affecting short positions, CoinDesk said. In bitcoin, about 93% of $267 million in liquidations were shorts, while open interest rose just 0.3% against a 2.6% price gain, suggesting the move was driven largely by bearish bets being forced closed. Bitcoin's one-week options skew, a measure of the extra premium paid for puts over calls, fell to about 2% from about 11% a day earlier.

Injective ETF listing and other movers

Injective's INJ token rose around 6% since midnight UTC and around 10% over 24 hours after Nasdaq approved the listing of Canary Capital's staked INJ ETF, which would trade under the ticker INJC, according to an SEC filing cited by CoinDesk.

The Official Trump memecoin dropped around 14% over 24 hours, the weakest performance among the top 100 tokens on CoinMarketCap, and World Liberty Financial's token lost around 4%, moves that CoinDesk said coincided with the Democrats' midterm wins. The CoinMarketCap fear and greed index rose to 42 from 37, back in neutral territory.

Legislative outlook

Mei said the election result could complicate the industry's legislative goals. "The CLARITY act in its current form is unlikely to pass, and interest rate cuts are still unlikely to occur," he said. The bill would set rules for how U.S. cryptocurrency markets are regulated. The new Democratic majorities in Congress take office on January 3.