Another indicator of wider acceptance: PCMag is accepting only BTC and ZEC as their cryptocurrency payment options. 

ZEC jumped a few days ago because JP Morgan is hiring the ZEC team to use the technology. This caused it to double but they will not be using the coins. Some say it just made more people aware of the technology. 

ETH jumped 3x on Alphabay news and XMR jumped 6x. Now ZEC is the 4th buying/selling option.

I agree with the previous poster: XMR head honcho insisting that it's not intended to appreciate in value has made followers unhappy, but it seems the real off-putting thing was dissing ETH. 

In other good news for Zcash: ZEC's clone zclassic did an ETH-type split, but some say it has had the effect of being a pump and dump since the best way into get in the new one was to buy the old one "but we'll support both". 

ZEC ranks #13 in market cap.  It should rank #8 beside Monero which would require a doubling.  Serious alphabay users should want Zcash over Monero due to mathematically provable anonymity verses Monero's security by obfuscation. But Monero's only 2% of Alphabay.  The BTC merchants and buyers should want ZEC for speed (2.5 minute blocks).