Shiny Coins #25 – Zcash Tags $1,300 as CPI Hands the Bid to Ethereum

Saturday, September 12, 2026. Bitcoin last printed around $77,280, down −3.0% on seven days that hid two circuses. The tape leaked from last Friday’s ~$79,670 close into the mid-$76,000s, then August CPI landed: headline +0.4% / +3.4% year-over-year in line, core +0.3% versus 0.2% expected, annual core 2.4%. Bitcoin wicked to roughly $76,050, ripped toward $79,800, and parked back at $77k. Spot bitcoin ETFs flipped last week’s $731 million inflow day into four outflow sessions, including −$283 million on September 10. Ethereum spot ETFs took the other side: +$216 million Friday, ETHA about $149 million of it. Total market cap ~$2.65 trillion. Bitcoin dominance ~58.6%. Alternative.me’s Fear & Greed Index: 63 (Greed), down from 74 last Saturday.

The shiny list is not “BTC held $77k.” It is the names that printed a new four-digit high, turned a Solana launchpad into a fee machine, or caught the bid bitcoin ETFs just refused to keep: ZEC, RAY, VVV, ETH, UNI, PONS, MINA, XMR.

The Shiny Coins Right Now

1. ZEC — Zcash — $1,150   +12.4% 7d

Last week we called $1,000 a magnet and a trapdoor. The market used it as a launchpad. ZEC tagged roughly $1,292–$1,298 on September 9 and a market cap that briefly cleared $20–$21 billion — enough for the top 10. Grayscale’s ZCSH ETF is still the TradFi permission slip (coverage had the fund above $400 million AUM). Then it dumped about 13% on September 10 toward $1,070, bounced through CPI, and parked near $1,150 / ~$19.5 billion. Holding four digits through a hot core print is the new story.

Key metric: week high ~$1,294; ~$19.5B market cap; still top 10 after the flush.

Outlook (1–4 weeks): Cautious — $1,000 and $1,200 are both live levels now.

Shielded txs, unshielded $1,300 screenshots, then a 13% reminder.

2. RAY — Raydium — $1.52   +80% 7d

Solana did not need a new L1 narrative. It needed a new factory. On September 5, StonkFun — tokens paired against tokenized stocks — routed every fresh deployment through Raydium’s LaunchLab and cut creator costs from 0.29 SOL to 0.03 SOL. The 12% fee-to-buyback machine then printed a roughly $641,000 single-day RAY repurchase around September 8–9, the fattest daily buyback since February 2025. Market cap screens near $411 million.

Key metric: ~+80% week; ~$641k daily buyback; StonkFun now lives on LaunchLab.

Outlook: Bullish while LaunchLab volume stays loud; fade risk is real after an 80% candle.

Pump.fun’s cousin moved in. Raydium sent the landlord a buyback.

3. VVV — Venice Token — $23.20   +28% 7d

Privacy did not stop at ZEC. Venice.ai is the uncensored inference app; VVV is the stake-to-infer token. It spent last Saturday in the high-teens, ripped through a $29.06–$29.19 all-time high on September 9, and digested back toward $23.20 with a market cap in the mid-$800 millions to just over $1 billion depending on the supply tape. Same week TradFi listed a privacy ETP, the market re-rated the other privacy-adjacent ticker.

Key metric: first trip through $29; ~+28% week after giving back the blow-off.

Outlook: Cautious / Bullish — $22 is where the story either holds or becomes last week’s screenshot.

Private money met private models. The candle did not ask permission.

4. ETH — Ethereum — $2,530   +3% 7d

Bitcoin ETFs spent four sessions handing chips back. Ethereum ETFs spent Friday taking them: about $216 million of net inflows on September 11, ETHA around $149 million of that haul. ETH wicked through $2,665 — its best print since January on several feeds — then cooled to ~$2,530. Coverage flagged roughly $216 million of ETH short liquidations on the same rip. Not altseason. Just the first week in a while TradFi actually bought the second-largest coin.

Key metric: +$216M ETH ETF Friday vs −$13M BTC ETFs; local high ~$2,665.

Outlook: Bullish into FOMC if $2,450 holds; Cautious if Wednesday’s hike flips the bid back to IBIT.

5. UNI — Uniswap — $6.37   +4% 7d

UNI did the loud work early. From last Friday’s ~$6.12 it tagged about $7.48 on September 6 as Robinhood Chain volume and the fee-switch burn tape stayed in the timeline, then leaked back toward $6.37 / ~$4.0 billion. A 4% week looks sleepy next to RAY. It is not sleepy if you watched $7.48 get offered.

Key metric: $7.48 wick; ~$4B market cap still intact after the giveback.

Outlook: Cautious — $7.50 was the sell-the-rip; $5.80–$6.00 is where we get less cute.

6. PONS — Pons — $0.59   −13% 7d

Last week’s +427% rocket did what 4x launchpad tokens do in week two: tagged a higher high and remembered gravity. PONS wicked toward $0.97, still holds something like 82.5% launchpad share on Robinhood Chain, and still prints real fees. Friday’s tape near $0.59 / ~$420 million is a cooldown, not a funeral.

Key metric: ~82.5% launchpad share; first serious dip after the $0.97 wick.

Outlook: Fading Heat / Cautious — activity can stay loud while the token chops.

Pump.fun, but make it orange — then make it give 13% back.

7. MINA — Mina — $0.108   +24% 7d

While ZEC sold the privacy screenshot, Mina shipped the other zero-knowledge story. Mesa landed on mainnet around September 3: slot time cut from 180 seconds to 90 seconds, zkApp state expanded. Price ground into the $0.09–$0.11 zone with a market cap near $120 million on several feeds. Not top 20. Just a chain that doubled block speed in the week ZK was allowed a bid.

Key metric: Mesa live; 90-second slots; still a sub-$200M name on several screens.

Outlook: Bullish as a post-upgrade digest if $0.09 holds.

8. XMR — Monero — $533   +3.3% 7d

ZEC got the $1,300 screenshot and the ETF. XMR got the quieter seat — $516 last Saturday to about $533, market cap still near $10 billion. No NYSE ticker. Just the original shielded chain refusing to fade while a four-digit cousin and a $29 Venice wick drag in tourists. When ZEC is a top-10 coin, XMR is not uncorrelated.

Key metric: held the $500s through ZEC’s $1,070 flush and a hot core print.

Outlook: Bullish as long as four-digit ZEC remains a headline, not a tombstone.

Hidden Gem of the Week

STONK — StonkFun — ~$0.26 / ~$224 million market cap   +1,100% 7d

Not in the top 20. Just the launchpad token that forced Raydium’s week. StonkFun moved new deployments onto LaunchLab on September 5 and the house token went from a rounding error to a ~$220 million market cap with nine-figure volume days. If RAY is the pickaxe, this is the carnival barker. Position size like the ticker is a warning label.

One to Watch Closely

The September 16 FOMC — hike odds near 85–90%, Bitcoin’s $76k shelf, and whether ETH keeps the ETF bid.

Friday’s core 0.3% print turned a coin-flip September meeting into something much closer to a 25-basis-point hike. Bitcoin defended the mid-$76,000s and failed to keep the $79,800 bounce. Spot bitcoin ETFs are four sessions red; ether ETFs just printed their best day in two weeks. A hold of $76,000–$77,000 into Wednesday keeps the mid-August higher-low intact. A clean break of Friday’s $76,050 wick takes the air out of every shiny coin on this list.

Closing

The rotation tells you the regime in one sentence: risk-on got picky, and picky still has a privacy bid. Dominance near 59% means capital is not spraying across 200 alts. It is concentrating in stories with a screenshot (ZEC at $1,300), a new venue (StonkFun on Raydium, Pons still humming on Robinhood Chain), or a TradFi pipe that actually bought something Friday (ETH). Privacy now has a four-digit coin, an ETF, a $29 Venice wick, and a Mina hard fork in the same two-week window. Memecoins still work; the factory keeps moving. Greed is 63, not 74. That is the window where shiny coins can still run — and where Wednesday’s hike can rekt anyone still waiting for the $82k wick to come back.

Not financial advice. DYOR. Don’t get married to a ticker that just printed $1,300, or to a launchpad token named Stonk.

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