Original Author: Billy Bambrough, Forbes

Original Translation: AididiaoJP, Foresight News

Bitcoin has finally climbed out of this year's downturn over the past month.

The price has risen back to $80,000 per coin, increasing by about 20% since mid-August. The market is trading on the possibility of "America potentially re-issuing money," while digesting a more alarming warning: someone has described the U.S. fiscal path as a "death spiral" with a scale of about $40 trillion. The macro narrative has been reignited, and funds are starting to flow into hard assets and crypto assets.

At this critical moment, U.S. President Trump once again fired at the Federal Reserve. Bitcoin is moving, but the one that has truly seen extreme gains is an older, more niche competitor: the privacy-focused Bitcoin alternative, Zcash.

In just a few weeks, the price of Zcash has more than doubled. From the 2024 low, its increase is about 7300%. This week, it has re-broken the $1,000 mark for the first time since its launch shortly after 2016. Over the past month, it has more than doubled, with an increase of nearly 2500% compared to the same period last year.

The phrase that spreads most easily in the crypto circle has surfaced.

Meme coin trader and NFT developer Nick O'Neill wrote on X: "I truly believe, buying Zcash now is like buying Bitcoin in 2013."

This statement is bold and precisely hits the market sentiment. Bitcoin in 2013 was far from becoming the institutional asset it is today; it was more like an experiment still unpriced. At present, Zcash is being compared not to Bitcoin today, but to a Bitcoin that has not yet been fully assimilated by Wall Street.

It's not a new coin; it has just been neglected by the market for many years

Zcash is known as a privacy coin. Technically, it's a branch of Bitcoin but adds a crucial capability: making the source, destination, and amount of transactions harder to trace.

Bitcoin lays the ledger completely open. Who sent to whom and how much is all clear on the chain. Analysis firms, exchanges, and regulatory bodies can dig down the addresses. Zcash takes a different path, hiding transactions through zero-knowledge cryptography—where the validity of a transaction can be proven on-chain, but it may not be clear where the money came from or where it went.

In 2022, Forbes revealed that the famous whistleblower Edward Snowden participated in the co-founding of Zcash. Early Bitcoin developers and crypto pioneers were also involved, led by cryptographer Zooko Wilcox.

This line has always existed; it's just that for a long time, no one was willing to price it. Privacy coins have long lived in the shadow of regulation, with thin trading depth, and their narrative easily seen as "something to avoid" by mainstream funds. Near the 2024 lows, Zcash was once pushed down to the teens. Two years later, it has re-entered $1,000; what the market remembers is not the technical white paper, but the contrast itself.

The more Bitcoin resembles an institutional asset, the more Zcash appears as its opposite

Bitwise's Chief Investment Officer, Matt Hougan, told CoinDesk this week: "Zcash tells a very unique privacy story."

His more critical remark followed: "I think as Bitcoin moves further into the institutional market, it will carve out a part of the market that seeks something outside of the institutional framework. Zcash is filling that position."

This is the clearest logic in this market cycle.

Over the past few years, Bitcoin underwent an identity transition: spot ETFs, Wall Street research coverage, pension funds, and asset management products entered the scene. It increasingly resembles a macro asset that can be compliantly held. However, once an asset becomes institutionalized, transparency of the ledger is no longer just a "decentralized virtue"; it becomes an unwanted characteristic for some—every transaction flow may be seen, analyzed, categorized.

Therefore, the market has begun to give "hard currency beyond the open ledger" a separate valuation box.

This box did not just appear this year. Last year, tech investor and AngelList co-founder Naval Ravikant made it clear on X: Bitcoin is "insurance against fiat," Zcash is "insurance against Bitcoin." Ravikant was an early supporter of companies like Uber and Twitter, and this remark subsequently ignited a wave of re-evaluation for Zcash.

In the past year, Zcash’s increase has far outpaced Bitcoin. Not because it is more mainstream than Bitcoin, but precisely because it has been re-understood as the part of demand willing to remain in the shadows once Bitcoin enters the institutional living room.

Grayscale brought the privacy narrative into U.S. stock accounts

Narratives can spark interest, and access can amplify that fire.

Last month, Grayscale, a subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, launched a Zcash spot ETF on NYSE Arca. For ordinary traders and investors, this means a very specific thing: there is no need to go to a crypto exchange or manage private keys; they can gain exposure to Zcash prices directly in their U.S. stock accounts.

This is the first time a privacy coin has entered the mainstream brokerage channels in the form of a spot ETF in the U.S.

Ravikant's role also makes this line more appealing. He served on the board of the Zcash Foundation and was an early investor in the Zcash development company, Electric Coin Company. According to Protos, the company raised about $3 million during its seed and venture capital rounds. Early Bitcoin and crypto figures were also involved, including Barry Silbert of Digital Currency Group and Roger Ver, the founder of Bitcoin Cash.

Grayscale is part of Digital Currency Group. Barry Silbert has connected early investments, trust products, and subsequent ETFs together. What the market sees is not just an old project suddenly surging but an asset that has been silent for many years finally gaining institutional access similar to Bitcoin.

Some have already begun reverse-engineering a $100 billion market cap

Now that the price has reached $1,000, predictions are becoming bolder.

Crypto trader and meme coin developer Zion Thomas (known as Ansem on X) wrote: "When I first bought cryptocurrency, Bitcoin was around $3,000, and a few months later, it reached $20,000. In the next 12 to 18 months, Zcash entering a similar pattern is completely possible."

By his calculation, if a roughly 500% increase occurs, the price of Zcash could soar to about $6,000, with a market cap of about $100 billion.

This is certainly a trader's extrapolation, not a fact that has already occurred. However, in this market cycle, the reason this statement can spread is that it overlays two things: one is the memory of "not yet fully priced" like in 2013; the other is that Zcash now has both a privacy narrative, a core holding base, and access through ETFs.

Ansem further added a stronger remark: "The logic of hard currency combined with privacy preservation is now stronger than ever. Over the past decade, a very core group of holders has formed, who have no short-term selling targets at all."

This statement highlights the distinction between Zcash and ordinary altcoins. It is not a target that has a narrative for a week before exiting within two weeks. Many holders who survived near the lows view this asset as long-term insurance rather than short-term chips. Once the circulating supply is locked up by such individuals, when external incremental funds enter, the price elasticity will be particularly dramatic.

What the market is betting on now is actually the next layer of pricing power

Unfolding the clues in this article, Zcash's recent surge is not solely reliant on the word "privacy."

On one side is the macro: dollar credit, fiscal expansion, and the conflict between Trump and the Federal Reserve have made "hard assets" sellable again.

On the other side is structure: once Bitcoin is assimilated by institutions, a transparent ledger no longer satisfies everyone.

On another side is product: Grayscale has transformed Zcash from a small coin on crypto exchanges into an exposure that can be bought directly in U.S. stock accounts.

Lastly, there is the holding base: core holders accumulated over a decade are not in a rush to sell in the short term.

Nick O'Neill said "like buying Bitcoin in 2013", Ansem predicted that in the next 12 to 18 months, a wave similar to the acceleration of 2013 might occur. Both statements are stimulating and reveal the risks—Bitcoin after 2013 experienced cuts, cuts, and more cuts.

At the moment, Zcash has successfully re-broken the $1,000 mark. What the market truly needs to answer is not whether it can tell the privacy story again, but whether this story can still be priced as "non-institutional Bitcoin" after being caught by ETFs and institutional funds.

If it can, the $6,000 and $100 billion market cap will repeatedly be factored in.

If it cannot, this surge from the 2024 low of about 7300% will ultimately be seen as an extreme rebound rather than the start of a new cycle.

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