Zcash Is Up Thousands of Percent, and Bitcoin's Earliest Billionaires Are Racing to Own the Rally

Zcash, a privacy-focused cryptocurrency that's existed for close to a decade without much mainstream attention, has become one of 2026's standout crypto trades, climbing into the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization at around $21.4 billion. The token hit an eight-year high in the $836 to $857 range, up more than 400% since the start of the year, a run large enough that some of Bitcoin's earliest and wealthiest investors are now competing directly for exposure to it.

Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, who made their fortunes as early Bitcoin backers through Gemini, and Barry Silbert, founder of Digital Currency Group, are at the center of that competition. DCG's Grayscale arm got there first, converting its existing Zcash Trust into the first U.S. spot Zcash ETF, which began trading on NYSE Arca under the ticker ZCSH in late August and is now simply called "The Zcash ETF"; Grayscale has pledged to put its sponsor fees toward ZEC network development and marketing for the fund's first year. The Winklevoss twins have since filed for a competing Zcash ETF of their own, and their investment vehicle Cypherpunk Technologies has been adding to its ZEC holdings.

The Winklevoss twins made their case publicly at the Token2049 conference, tying Zcash directly to the AI boom. "If you are bullish on AI then you are bullish on Zcash. In the age of super intelligence, private money is essential," Cameron Winklevoss said, arguing that as AI tools get better at analyzing activity on public blockchains like Bitcoin's, demand will grow for a cryptocurrency built around zero-knowledge proofs that can hide transaction details. Tyler Winklevoss has also pointed to Zcash's fixed 21 million coin supply cap as a scarcity argument, noting there are fewer whole coins in circulation than there are dollar millionaires worldwide.

The renewed interest follows a March 2025 U.S. court ruling that reduced legal uncertainty around privacy coins, and the rally has drawn in other prominent backers, including early crypto investor Naval Ravikant. But the move has largely been driven by leverage rather than spot buying: derivatives volume in Zcash has run as high as $4.55 billion against roughly $553 million in spot trading, a gap that raises the risk of sharp liquidations if sentiment turns, on top of the regulatory scrutiny privacy-focused crypto assets continue to face from anti-money-laundering authorities.