Why Is Everyone Suddenly Talking About Privacy Coin Zcash Again?

Zcash’s price rose to $165 on Monday as Mert Mumtaz, CEO of Solana infrastructure firm Helius Labs, continued cheerleading the token on X, among other notable crypto observers.

Mumtaz has emerged one of Zcash’s most vocal backers, and he said on Monday that he “love[s] shilling privacy stuff because it actually ends up making a difference in the privacy properties of these systems.” He called for the token to hit $1,000.

Alongside his price prediction, Mumtaz posted a chart displaying the amount of Zcash being “shielded” through zero-knowledge proofs. He noted that the amount of funds effectively being masked “is going up and to the right over time.”

Zcash changed hands around $162 on Monday, a 7.5% increase over the past day, according to crypto data provider CoinGecko. The cryptocurrency’s price has surged nearly 240% over the past two weeks, but it remains far off all-time highs.

Zcash debuted in 2016, and its price peaked around $3,200 then. On Monday, Zcash was changing hands around its highest level since April 2022.

When asked about his interest in Zcash, Mumtaz directed Decrypt to a post on X, in which he says he likes Zcash because it has “a stronger privacy and scale design” than alternatives like Monero, fresh talent entering its ecosystem, and a longstanding community.

“Do not allocate what you’re not willing to lose, this is risky,” he said in the post. “Only look into it if you agree with the argument on its merits.”

Mumtaz acknowledged to Decrypt that other people’s social media activity “also likely helped start an interest flywheel.”

A crypto streamer who goes by Gainzy on X shared a link to a livestream on Monday alongside an image of Zcash’s logo. Chris Burniske, a partner at venture capital firm Placeholder, meanwhile shared a link to the company’s thesis on Zcash on X, which also mentions Bitcoin. 

“While Zcash was in part inspired by Bitcoin, the community has never been content being ‘Bitcoin but with privacy,’” it states. “Instead, they have recognized other core deficiencies in Bitcoin’s design, and worked to create a more sustainable system.”

A notable venture capitalist called Naval Ravikant also highlighted Zcash on X last week. The post has been viewed 2.9 million times. He called Zcash “insurance against Bitcoin,” suggesting that it has beneficial properties compared to the asset often portrayed as digital gold.

Zcash is used for private transactions, but users can also send transparent ones. Bitcoin transactions are recorded on a public ledger that anyone can see, so they are comparatively pseudonymous because wallet addresses aren’t tied to actual identities.  

Last week, crypto data provider Messari said that Zcash was leading “weekly mindshare with a 1,000% increase” on X. That means that interest had risen notably in the token on social media, and more so than other cryptocurrencies like Litecoin and Curve.

Zcash’s recent rally follows news from crypto asset manager Grayscale, which at the beginning of this month, said on X that it was creating a private placement for Zcash, allowing eligible investors to gain exposure to the token.

When it comes to renewed interest in Zcash, Gainzy doubted that it had anything to do with its technical merits while streaming on Monday.

“Retail doesn’t care about zero-knowledge proofs. They don’t care about retail about shielded transactions,” he said. “They care about green candles, bro. They care about dollar signs going up, and that’s finally happening.”