Zcash (ZEC) surged about 20% in 24 hours to trade near $1,000 on Friday, extending a rally that has lifted the privacy token about 94% over the past 30 days and more than 2,300% over the past year. ZEC reached roughly $1,023 after opening near $828, according to CoinGecko. Trading volume was about $1.2 billion, and its market value approached $17 billion. The rally forced the liquidation of about $36.6 million in leveraged ZEC positions, including $34.5 million in short positions. A short liquidation occurs when an exchange closes a bearish position after rising prices leave insufficient collateral; the resulting buyback can intensify upward momentum. Open interest in ZEC futures, measuring outstanding derivative contracts, rose to about 2.3 million ZEC worth roughly $2.3 billion. Recent catalysts included Grayscale's spot Zcash ETF, which began trading on NYSE Arca in late August under the ticker ZCSH, and reported non-binding talks by a Digital Currency Group subsidiary to buy 200,000 ZEC. Meanwhile, developers of Zakura, a Zcash node launched in July, released cryptography tools earlier this month that reduced mobile wallet private-transaction construction time from more than three seconds to under 200 milliseconds.