ZEC Outpaces Bitcoin As Zcash Holders Vote To Keep BTC-Style Halvings

The Zcash token was the only gainer among the top ten cryptocurrencies on Wednesday.

• The Zcash token rose more than 7%  in the last 24 hours, while Bitcoin’s price fell more than 1% to around $75,804.
• The move comes after Zcash Labs committed $80,000 to integrate the Ironwood shielded pool into Ledger hardware wallets.
• Zcash holders voted to cut block times to 25 seconds from 75 and to keep Bitcoin-style halvings.

Zcash (ZEC) outperformed Bitcoin (BTC) on Wednesday after Zcash Labs announced it would fund work to bring the network's new shielded pool to Ledger hardware wallets.

ZEC’s price was up over 7% during the past 24 hours, compared to Bitcoin’s over 1% loss in the same time, making it the only altcoin to gain among the top ten cryptocurrencies. 

The total market capitalization dropped around 2.5% over the past day, slipping below the $2.7 trillion mark, and liquidations topped $600 million. Bitcoin, the apex cryptocurrency, slipped as it gave up ground after crypto's biggest legislative push of the year, the CLARITY Act, stalled in Washington on Tuesday.

Bitcoin’s price traded around $75,804 at the time of writing. On Stocktwits, the retail sentiment around BTC remained in the ‘extremely bearish’ zone, while chatter around it shifted to ‘normal’ from ‘low’ over the past day.

On Stocktwits, ZEC was one of the top trending tickers as retail sentiment around ZEC moved to the ‘bearish’ zone from ‘neutral’ and chatter shifted to ‘low’ from ‘normal’ levels over the past day. 

One retail user on Stocktwits called the altcoin “privacy that actually works.”

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Will Zcash Have A Bitcoin-Style Halving?

Zcash holders voted to cut the block time from 75 seconds to 25 seconds in a vote on NU7, the next upgrade for the network. They also voted to continue using halvings. Keeping halvings won 98.9% of the overall vote. The results were published on Monday on the Zcash Community Forum.

Only ZEC in the Ironwood pool could cast a vote. Faster blocks would mean faster initial confirmations. Each block would issue less ZEC, so daily issuance remains the same. Halvings are a predetermined schedule that cuts new ZEC issuance in half, similar to Bitcoin halving. The advisory panel was split on retaining them, with 57 members against and 54 in favor.

Zcash Labs, an organization launched in August to help businesses and institutions integrate Zcash, also announced on Tuesday that it had signed a funding agreement with Ledger, the maker of hardware wallets used to store crypto offline.

It committed $80,000 to integrate the Ironwood pool into Ledger devices. The company said the agreement would let ZEC holders self-custody coins held in the latest pool on their Ledger hardware.

Deal Sits Outside The Grant

According to Zcash Labs, the arrangement was a bilateral agreement between Ledger and the company. The post explained that the deal had changed nothing about the deliverables owed to the community or the review process, and that it had no authority over the grant.

Zcash is up over 137% so far this year and up over 2245% in the last 12 months.

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