Bitcoin ETFs log $2.4B weekly inflow — their best week since October — as Zcash surges 7.8% on a Bitcoin privacy proposal

The dominant story today was Bitcoin ETF flows. A seven-day inflow streak totaling $2.4 billion — the strongest weekly figure since October — pushed 2026 cumulative ETF flows into positive territory for the first time this year. That shift in institutional positioning is the most plausible explanation for Bitcoin's steady grind to $84,863 (+0.84%) and the Fear & Greed index sitting at 70, firmly in Greed territory. When ETF flows turn consistently positive at this scale, it typically reflects pension funds, family offices, and registered investment advisers adding exposure through regulated wrappers rather than spot exchanges — a different buyer profile than retail-driven rallies. Zcash's 7.77% gain to $1,661.82 had a clearer catalyst: a CoinDesk report that developers are exploring a way to bring Zcash-style shielded transactions (private transfers that hide sender, receiver, and amount) to Bitcoin at the application layer, without requiring any change to Bitcoin's core protocol. The proposal is early-stage, but it put Zcash back in the conversation as the reference implementation for on-chain privacy — and traders responded. Solana added 2.20% to reach $123.81, continuing a run of relative outperformance among large-cap assets, though no specific catalyst emerged for today's move. XRP slipped 0.87% to $1.53 after news broke that the Bitget hacker moved $83 million in stolen XRP — funds that Ripple cannot freeze because they sit in wallets outside Ripple's control. The incident is a reminder that XRP's partial freeze capability, which Ripple has used in past enforcement actions, does not extend to assets already in hacker-controlled addresses. Quant's 56.44% surge stands apart from the rest of the session. No confirmed catalyst has emerged from available data; the move has the characteristics of a short squeeze or a liquidity event in a thinly traded market.

• –A hacker moved $83 million in stolen XRP that Ripple cannot freeze, underscoring the limits of Ripple's on-chain enforcement tools once funds leave controlled addresses.
• –Binance struck a new partnership with Circle that analysts say strengthens USDC's competitive position against Tether in the stablecoin market.
• –Riot Platforms repaid a $200 million credit facility and freed up the collateral backing it, a balance-sheet improvement for one of the largest publicly listed Bitcoin miners.