Cycle Overlay
ZEC's current run laid over earlier runs, day for day. Every run starts on the last close below its anchor price and is measured as a multiple of that anchor, so a $800 ZEC and a $800 Bitcoin sit on the same axis.
This is a sample size of one, three times over. Three reference runs are not a distribution; they are three stories, and we picked them because they are the ones people already tell. Nothing here implies the current run will follow any of them.
The anchor is a choice, and it moves the whole picture. Nudging it from $800.00 to $1,000 shifts day 0 by days or weeks and changes every multiple. Try all three chips before you conclude anything.
The structures differ. Bitcoin in 2017 had no perpetual futures worth the name and no ETF; ZEC in 2021 rode a market-wide beta wave; the present run has deep derivatives, cross-chain swap flow and a shielded-pool migration underneath it. Day counts line up; conditions do not.
The drawdown is part of the analogy. Each reference reached a peak and then gave back most of it, and the trough markers on the chart are as much the "pattern" as the rise. If you borrow the upside from a reference, borrow its downside too.
Zcash is on day 21 of the run it started when it last closed below $800.00 on 2026-08-22 — it is now 1.49× that level, at $1,193. On their own day 21, Bitcoin 2017 was at 1.26×, ZEC 2021 was at 1.10× and Bitcoin 2020–21 was at 1.16×. That is 18% hotter than Bitcoin 2017 at the same age.
The dashed lines are finished runs from the past, drawn only as a yardstick — Bitcoin's 2017 cycle, Zcash's own 2021 cycle, Bitcoin's 2020–21 cycle. The solid green line is now. Everything is measured as a multiple of each run's own starting price, which is what lets a $800 Zcash and a $10,000 Bitcoin share one axis.
| Point | Day | ZEC now | Bitcoin 2017 | ZEC 2021 | Bitcoin 2020–21 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Day 0 | 0 | 1.00× · $798.30 | 0.99× · $788.02 | 0.99× · $99.36 | 0.99× · $9,925 |
| Day 7 | 7 | 1.16× · $927.16 | 1.08× · $864.67 | 1.11× · $111.21 | 1.07× · $10,689 |
| Today · day 21 | 21 | 1.49× · $1,193 | 1.26× · $1,007 | 1.10× · $109.68 | 1.16× · $11,640 |
| Day 30 | 30 | not yet | 1.30× · $1,038 | 1.20× · $120.36 | 1.22× · $12,242 |
| Day 60 | 60 | not yet | 1.72× · $1,377 | 1.38× · $137.96 | 1.50× · $15,032 |
| Day 90 | 90 | not yet | 2.30× · $1,838 | 1.60× · $159.79 | 1.78× · $17,774 |
| Day 180 | 180 | not yet | 5.61× · $4,490 | 2.36× · $236.39 | 3.09× · $30,901 |
| ZEC 2021 peak | 241 | not yet | 9.40× · $7,522 | 3.29× · $329.37 | 4.78× · $47,835 |
| Day 270 | 270 | not yet | 12.1× · $9,655 | 2.08× · $208.00 | 5.94× · $59,363 |
| Bitcoin 2017 peak | 339 | not yet | 24.9× · $19,888 | 1.14× · $113.70 | 4.13× · $41,348 |
| Day 365 | 365 | not yet | 21.9× · $17,499 | 1.50× · $149.85 | 3.53× · $35,264 |
| Bitcoin 2020–21 peak | 494 | not yet | 10.9× · $8,720 | 1.53× · $153.22 | 7.04× · $70,427 |
▍How this is computed
Definitions, so you can reproduce it from the daily API.
Day 0 is the last daily close strictly below the anchor. For the live ZEC run we search backwards from today; for the references we search inside a bounded window around the historical crossing so a later dip does not restart the run.
Multiple = close ÷ anchor. Reference anchors are fixed at their own crossing levels (Bitcoin 2017: $800.00; ZEC 2021: $100.00; Bitcoin 2020–21: $10,000); only ZEC's anchor is selectable.
Peak is the highest multiple inside the run window; trough is the lowest close after that peak, still inside the window. Drawdown is trough ÷ peak − 1.
Pace divides ZEC's multiple by the primary reference's multiple on the same day index. It is a ratio of ratios: 1.0 means the two runs have travelled the same distance from their anchors, not that they are at the same price.
The table samples each run at fixed day counts and at every reference peak. Blank ZEC cells are days that have not happened yet. Reference series come from the same daily rollup that powers the price chart and ZEC/BTC.
Related: realized price, correlations, DCA Lab.