Privacy Coins Can't Catch a Break: ZEC Dips 21% Off High While $BTC Hugs $83K 🪙

Bitcoin slipped to just above $83,100 during Asian trading hours on Tuesday, with the leading cryptocurrency trading under 1% lower as rising Treasury yields and climbing oil prices fueled inflation concerns and expectations of further Federal Reserve tightening. The 10-year Treasury yield touched 5.25%, up one basis point after reaching its highest level since 2007 on Monday. Brent crude rose more than 1% to nearly $107 a barrel for a second consecutive session, as hopes faded for an imminent diplomatic breakthrough with Iran. Pricier oil feeds into inflation, and traders have been adding to bets that the Fed will raise rates again ahead of Wednesday's PCE inflation data.

Zcash led losses among major tokens, with ZEC falling 12% to about $1,380 according to CoinDesk data. SOL and HYPE each lost between 3% and 4%, DOGE fell 3%, BNB dropped 2%, and XRP shed nearly 2%. Ether and TRX were flat. Among smaller tokens, The Graph's GRT jumped 18% and Immutable's IMX gained nearly 10%, per FxPro, while UNI and BCH each fell about 10% and DASH lost 7%. Total cryptocurrency market capitalization held near $2.86 trillion. A widely watched crypto sentiment index stood at 74 out of 100 on Monday, just short of the "extreme greed" zone, a level that brokerage FxPro contrasted with the fear that has gripped equities for the past 20 days.

"Bitcoin has pulled back to $83K, testing the lower boundary of last week's consolidation range," Alex Kuptsikevich, chief market analyst at FxPro, said in an email to CoinDesk. "As with the market as a whole, a retest of the $82K region, where peaks were formed in May and early September, is entirely to be expected under current conditions." Kuptsikevich added that a sustained move back below $80,000 would signal that the market is not ready to move higher for some time, while renewed bullish momentum could send Bitcoin well above $90,000.

ZEC's slide extends a broader pullback from its late-September peak of $1,698, leaving the privacy coin roughly 21% below that high after having climbed about 253% from a $480.72 base. The Relative Strength Index for ZEC sits at 50.2, neutral territory after overbought readings during its rally, while the Average Directional Index reads 52.0, indicating a strong but lagging trend. The 50-day exponential moving average remains above the 200-day, keeping the trend structure bullish on paper, though convergence of those lines typically signals the first signs of a trend change. Sentiment around ZEC has also been pressured by the Sept. 24 Bitget hack, in which about $387 million was stolen, with blockchain investigator ZachXBT flagging 2,746 ZEC worth roughly $3.9 million moving from hack-linked addresses into Zcash's shielded pool on Wednesday. Meanwhile, Grayscale's Zcash ETF, ticker ZCSH, recorded a $30.25 million net outflow the same day, bringing cumulative net inflows to nearly $268 million following its Aug. 25 launch.