Historical replay · ZEC/USD
Zcash's June 4-5 Collapse (2026)
On June 3 ZEC was rising while the rest of the market fell, reaching $644.51. About 55 hours later it touched $250.12 — down 61% — with a single hour on June 5 trading $110 million.
The first days of June 2026 were already rough for crypto. Bitcoin fell from about $73,700 at the start of June 1 to around $64,100 by the close of June 3, and Ether dropped below $1,850. Zcash, the privacy-focused coin, went the other way: it rose about 12% on June 2 while Bitcoin lost 6.5%, and early on June 3 it touched $644.51 on Binance.
That divergence didn't last. ZEC slid steadily through June 4 — from about $626 in the first hour to a low of $510 by early afternoon UTC — bounced briefly to $549, then gave way in the evening. The 21:00 UTC hour alone cut about 7%, and the day closed at $459.44, down 26%.
June 5 is the part of the chart worth replaying slowly. The selling continued overnight: about $432 by 01:00 UTC, $375 by 06:00. Then the floor went. The 06:00 hour fell almost 15% to about $320, and in the 07:00 hour ZEC touched $250.12 — around 61% below the June 3 high — before closing that same hour near $309. About $110 million of ZEC traded in that one hour, and nearly $1 billion over the day, several times a normal session.
What followed was violent in both directions. ZEC jumped 11.5% in the 09:00 hour, fell back below $300 by 11:00, then rallied repeatedly through the afternoon and evening to close the day at $389.43 — 56% above its low, yet still down 15% on the session. Bitcoin, for comparison, touched $59,131 that day, about 20% below where it had started the month; the broad sell-off was the backdrop, but ZEC's move was several times larger. We have not been able to tie the timing to a single verified catalyst.
Recovery took far longer than the fall. ZEC rallied 22% on June 7 and reached $544 by June 15, but it did not trade above its June 3 high again until August 21, eleven weeks later. It went on to set new Binance highs above $1,600 in September — a reminder that a 61% crash and a later multi-month rally can belong to the same coin in the same year.