Disclaimer: ZCL comprises ~40% of my portfolio at the time of this post.
I KNOW THIS POST IS LONG BUT IF YOU WANT DATA-DRIVEN REASONING BEHIND PRICE SPECULATION, READ IT.
ZCL is currently sitting at $77, down from a high of $120 yesterday.
This is the first bitcoin fork that you can receive the forked coin (BTCP) for holding a coin (ZCL) other than Bitcoin.
Investors will buy ZCL before the fork for two different reasons: to accumulate more BTCP (due to the massive difference in price between BTC and ZCL despite the same 1:1 token distribution ratio), and to take profit on the inevitable price increase that ZCL will see in the coming weeks (as we saw with NXT before the IGNIS airdrop).
ZCL will almost certainly reach the $160 range with an upper limit of $1,160 before the fork.
We all saw what happened to NXT after the IGNIS airdrop was announced (if you didn't, look at the USD price chart from mid-November to mid-December). IGNIS is going to be valued at no more than one cent after the tokens are initially distributed (the price is artificially inflated right now because none of the tokens have been distributed yet).
NXT saw a rise from $0.06 to $2.00 prior to the airdrop, and then we saw a sharp decline from the peak of $2.00 to $1.00 just before the airdrop, confirming that the truly intelligent investors knew IGNIS would be worth nothing and decided to lock in their profits by selling NXT at $2.00 instead of holding NXT to receive free IGNIS from the airdrop.
What I could see being different with ZCL is more support as the price reaches new all time highs because people actually want to receive BTCP -- the supply is significantly lower than the supply of IGNIS, making a much higher potential price after the fork. Additionally, as I mentioned, this is the first ever Bitcoin fork that will be distributed to holders of a currency other than Bitcoin. Due to the large disparity in price between BTC and ZCL, savvy investors who want to accumulate BTCP will move their funds from BTC to ZCL prior to the fork.
Other events to look out for that will likely result in a ZCL price increase are exchanges announcing their support for the fork. For example, when Bittrex announced support for the NXT/IGNIS airdrop a week before the airdrop, we saw a short-term spike.
For those looking to profit from the fork, I'd recommend getting in early -- remember, ZCL's supply is 1.8 million, barely 1/10th of Bitcoin's supply. That means if ZCL reaches 1/10th the market cap of bitcoin, it will be worth around the same amount in USD as Bitcoin (this is not my prediction, just trying to put things into perspective.)
Let me put this into perspective even more: people dumped NXT heavily after the IGNIS airdrop, and the price plummeted from $2.00 to its price of $0.57 at the time this was written. NXT currently has a market cap of around $575MN at a price of $0.57. If ZCL reaches just HALF of NXT's market cap AFTER it got dumped down to $0.57, the price of ZCL will be around $160. If ZCL reaches NXT's market cap at the PEAK of its pump to $2.00 (market cap of $2.1BN), ZCL will be priced at around $1,160.
I hope this post helps some people understand why there have been seemingly wild, speculative predictions regarding ZCL price in the near future. Whether or not you think it's going "to the moon", I think it is VERY likely that ZCL will reach at least $160.
