- BTC-USD
+0.54% - ZEC-USD
-1.17%
It was a quiet crypto trading session in a quiet summer, but the charts are painting different pictures for Bitcoin, the market leader, and Zcash, one of the hottest altcoins of the last year.
Bitcoin spent the week dealing with fears of quantum and AI threats: CNBC’s Jim Cramer said he’s dumping his BTC over quantum-computing fears, and a separate $130 million Coldcard wallet exploit, disclosed late last week, added a custody scare on top.
On the macro side, the Federal Reserve, holding rates at 3.5%–3.75%, left risk assets in a wait-and-see limbo.
Zcash, the privacy coin co-created by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, had a firmer reason to move. Its Ironwood upgrade, network upgrade NU6.3, activated on mainnet July 28 at block 3,428,143, reworking the network’s privacy backbone. It was no small thing, given the update put to rest fears created when, again, AI discovered a vulnerability in Zcash’s code that’s now been patched.
Zcash, which trades as ZEC, dipped on the activation of the upgrade, a classic sell-the-news scenario, before buyers came back. Tuesday’s 2.95% gain for ZEC keeps that recovery narrative alive.
Bitcoin price: What the charts say
Bitcoin printed a $63,820–$64,706 price range and is currently priced at $64,656, up 0.94%. The move looks like a recovery attempt, not a trend reversal.
The bigger picture sets the trap. Bitcoin peaked near $80,000 in May, crashed through June to a low near $56,000, and has since stabilized in a $60,000–$67,000 range through July and early August. That is a base, not a breakout.
The price of Bitcoin is now pressing toward the 200-day exponential moving average, or EMA, around $66,500, the ceiling that has capped every bounce since a pattern traders refer to as a death cross formed months ago. The structure still reads like a relief rally inside a downtrend: higher from the June low, but not yet able to reclaim the long-term average.
The 50-day EMA (the average price of the last 50 days) sits near $64,200, below the 200-day EMA near $66,500, in a death cross formation. A death cross occurs when the shorter average sits below the longer one, so the medium-term trajectory is still pointed downward. Current BTC price is above the 50-day but below the 200-day, a short-term recovery pressing into long-term resistance.
The Relative Strength Index, or RSI, a momentum gauge on a 0–100 scale where above 70 is overbought and below 30 is oversold, reads 53.5, just above the neutral 50 line. Neutral to slightly bullish, but not convincing.
