For anyone curious or wanting to add some theories on this, I've identified three likely forces moving ZEC trading in March so far. If anyone has theories on how I might quantify these, please share because I don't think they're in order of strength and it'd be nice to have some theories on how spent these forces are now.
1. Conflict and sanctions in Russia, dealing with Russian currency as well as the use of crypto assets in various parts of finance on both sides of the invasion.
2. Increased fear or uncertainty in regulatory pressure. Of the privacy coins, ZEC offers good regulatory compatibility, privacy and plans to switch to PoS, giving it appeal in countries where PoW bans are on the books or on the table. In fact, it could be a candidate, I think, for a country to adopt or clone as a digital currency given a the apparent needs for a privacy-centric central bank coin, according to the US CBDC report.
3. The last thing is the upgrade, scheduled for mid-April. It should be a big deal to anyone who pretends to give a crap about security or privacy or even the foundation of blockchain because the halo 5 upgrade is supposed to get rid of the trusted setup Zcash fans currently soft-gaze or pretend not to notice.
As I understand it--and I understand it oversimplified, fyi--the current chain had to be setup with private keys from somewhere. Even if I trust the person or group who had access to those keys, there's always a chance they were leaked, spied, stolen, copied, etc. and still exist. At best, that fact sows doubt in ZEC privacy. It doesn't have to compromise safety and security of users or bring down the network to be a problem. What's the point of the high-tech zk-snarks setup if you can't guaruntee the premise?
This was a sticking point to early crypto adopters who vetted ZEC when it forked from BTC, and its an even bigger issue for anyone who looks at these things deeper than securities. Some of the funadmental value props of blockchains are distributed, trustless networks and ledgers, and a trusted setup basically cancels out a big chunk of what makes crypto and blockchain so capable ... right out of the box it's neutered.
Will the upgrade come in mid-April? I'm always happy just to see a blockchain upgrade that meets its deadline, so if they meet their mid-april mark, that'll be a plus. If the upgrade actually gets rid of trusted setup, it should be a huge windfall for the currency and its devs.
The real question is: Do people really care? Probably because we've had it taken away in areas of our lives, we better understand the value and cost of privacy than we did in the past, but most of the time, we're not willing to pay that cost. We want it built in, so we click "Install" and type our password without reading what we're signing away.
The great news here is that these upgrades are a huge step towards a blockchain that protects privacy right out-of-the box. You don't have to go dig through a ton of settings or "hack" the software to try and protect your privacy. It's made that way ... instead of being made to harvest your personal info, it's designed to protect it.
Now that that's out of the way, what'll do for the price? I hope it'll carve out its own niche among the DeFi as well as everyday users who use it to protect and verify customer data, business owners, security contractors, voting, etc. I don't think much of anyone aside form the ZEC grassroots crew has bought into this yet, and it's a concept that should come easily to the present buyers snatching up ZEC for its store of value and hedge on regulation (it's somewhat regulatory friendly, if investors are forced to show their hands, but it also offers discretion if investments need to be moved, transfered, etc.