Video Title: ZEC: Once in a Lifetime Trade
Video author: Taiki Maeda
Compiled by: Peggy, BlockBeats

Editor’s Note: As the crypto market rewarms and institutional capital continues flowing into mainstream assets, market discussions are shifting from “Whether Bitcoin has long-term store-of-value properties” to “Which assets, besides Bitcoin, might achieve independent value consensus.” But as ETFs, scarcity, and inflation hedging become established narratives, a more critical question is emerging: For crypto assets that generate no cash flow, how can a sustainable positive feedback loop be formed between technical functionality, real-world usage, and price appreciation?

Over the past year, Zcash, which had been dormant for years, has returned to the center of the market. After nearly nine years of relative stagnation, ZEC has surged significantly and recently broke through $1,000; at the same time, Grayscale’s Zcash ETF has launched on NYSE Arca, providing traditional investors with a new entry point. Price performance, privacy demand, and institutional access are all improving simultaneously, causing some investors to once again view Zcash as a potential store of value beyond Bitcoin.

In this video, crypto trader and ZEC bull Taiki Maeda explains why he bet the majority of his net worth on ZEC, and why, after selling at a low following a security incident that triggered a sharp decline, he chose to buy back in at a higher price.

In this nearly 38-minute personal trade review, Taiki actually broke down a ZEC long position into a set of more fundamental structural questions: Can privacy become a standalone demand asset separate from Bitcoin? Can price appreciation improve the utility of privacy networks? And when the market begins to validate a non-consensus view, how should investors adjust their positions rather than being constrained by their original cost basis?

First, Zcash’s positioning is shifting from a “privacy coin” to a “privacy-preserving store of value.” In the past, the market primarily viewed Zcash as an anonymous transaction tool—a label that limited its valuation and subjected it to ongoing regulatory and compliance pressures. Taiki’s new framework redefines ZEC as a complement to Bitcoin’s store-of-value function: Bitcoin provides scarcity, decentralization, and auditable supply, while Zcash seeks to add optional privacy atop similar monetary properties. If demand for financial privacy and quantum security continues to rise, ZEC’s use cases may expand beyond on-chain transfers to include asset protection and long-term value storage. However, this remains an unproven market thesis—technical differences do not automatically translate into a stable store-of-value consensus.

Second, Zcash’s fundamentals may exhibit stronger price reflexivity than typical crypto assets. Traditional protocol tokens are often constrained by revenue, buybacks, or valuation multiples—higher prices typically narrow the potential upside. As a non-cash-flow asset, Zcash’s value relies more on network scale and consensus among marginal buyers. Taiki believes that as ZEC’s price rises, the dollar value locked in the shielded pool increases; a larger privacy pool may enhance the network’s accessibility to large sums of capital. Improved adoption further reinforces the store-of-value narrative and attracts more capital. This means price is not merely a result of fundamentals—it can also shape them. However, the same mechanism works in reverse: if adoption stalls or confidence reverses, reflexivity can quickly shift from an upward driver to a downward amplifier.

Third, while ETFs have opened a gateway for traditional capital, they have not eliminated uncertainty on the demand side. In the past, investors gained exposure to ZEC primarily through cryptocurrency exchanges, with barriers such as capital thresholds, custody, and compliance limiting participation from traditional institutions. Following the listing of the Zcash ETF, these friction points have decreased, giving Taiki’s vision of “the second crypto store-of-value asset beyond Bitcoin” its first relatively standardized financial channel. However, an ETF is merely a configuration tool and does not equate to sustained buying pressure. Its true significance must ultimately be validated by net inflows, growing holdings, and trading activity—not merely inferred from the listing event itself.

Fourth, Taiki’s assessment of ZEC was also based on a crisis of trust. In June of this year, concerns over a potential vulnerability in the Orchard shielded pool triggered market fears of covert inflation, causing ZEC to plummet sharply. Taiki sold his position at the low point, then repurchased once the price returned to its pre-event level. In his trading framework, price recovery signals that the market has not entirely abandoned Zcash, suggesting the asset demonstrated a degree of “antifragility” after the shock. However, the price rebound only indicates that risk appetite and market confidence have been partially restored—it does not prove that all technical risks have been eliminated. What truly matters is whether the protocol fix can withstand the test of time and whether supply integrity can continue to earn user trust.

Fifth, this transaction reveals the most challenging aspect of high-confidence investing: how to manage the relationship between price validation, personal cost, and position size. Taiki chose to sell low and buy high—not to deny past mistakes, but to separate historical cost from future judgment. He exited when the original risk had not yet been eliminated, and re-entered when price and fundamentals once again supported the trade thesis, then increased his position as his judgment was validated. This approach emphasizes concentrating on profitable trades, but it may also mask chasing price increases as “market validation.” The line between the two depends on whether the investor has clear, observable conditions for failure.

If this video were distilled into one insight, it would be this: Taiki isn’t betting on ZEC simply continuing its upward trend, but rather on a self-reinforcing cycle forming between price, privacy adoption, institutional access, and store-of-value consensus. In this sense, the subject of this discussion is no longer just the price rise logic of a privacy coin, but how a crypto asset with no cash flow can establish value through the interplay of technical functionality, market narrative, and capital flows.

The following is the original content (slightly edited for easier reading and understanding):

TL;DR

·ZEC's current rally is not just about the return of the privacy narrative, but also reflects the market's attempt to reprice it as a store of value beyond Bitcoin.

The number of ZEC in the shielded pool and its dollar value grow in tandem, potentially expanding the privacy set for transactions, creating a reflexive dynamic that supports price appreciation through improved product usability.

The Zcash ETF lowers the barrier for traditional capital to gain exposure to ZEC, but whether a store-of-value consensus can be established still depends on sustained net inflows rather than the listing itself.

The crypto market is shifting from broad-based gains to structural differentiation, with capital increasingly flowing toward store-of-value assets and tokens backed by cash flow.

The price recovery following the Orchard vulnerability indicates that market confidence has not been completely undermined, but the price rebound does not prove that the technical risks and supply integrity issues have been fully resolved.

·Taiki's core logic of setting a low-level stop-loss and buying back at a high level treats price recovery as market validation, and reallocates positions based on future outlook rather than historical cost.

The valuation discount of ZEC relative to Bitcoin offers significant upside potential, but whether it can reach 5% to 15% of Bitcoin’s market cap remains a highly subjective scenario projection.

This transaction ultimately bets on a positive feedback loop among price, privacy adoption, institutional capital, and store-of-value consensus—and the failure of any one component could rapidly reverse this reflexivity.

Main points

Note: In the text below, "I" refers to the original video author and crypto trader Taiki Maeda.

Zcash is a decentralized blockchain centered on financial privacy, officially launched in October 2016. It shares several similarities with Bitcoin in its monetary mechanism: a maximum supply of 21 million coins, network security maintained through proof-of-work, and a halving cycle approximately every four years.

The most obvious difference between the two is privacy.

The Bitcoin ledger is publicly accessible by default, allowing anyone to view the balances and fund movements of on-chain addresses. Zcash supports both transparent and shielded addresses. Users can make public transfers like Bitcoin, or send ZEC into the shielded pool to conceal information such as the sender, recipient, and transaction amount.

This feature relies on zero-knowledge proofs, which allow verification that a statement or transaction complies with rules without revealing specific information. Zcash is one of the earliest blockchain projects to implement zero-knowledge proofs in practice. Although its product experience and infrastructure have long had shortcomings, privacy features are becoming easier to use as wallets and user interfaces improve.

Looking back at the history of the crypto market, solutions addressing Bitcoin's limitations have often given rise to new asset classes. Bitcoin's lack of programmability and scalability spurred the development of Ethereum, Solana, and the Layer 2 ecosystem; while its absence of native privacy created potential space for Zcash.

I believe what makes Zcash truly noteworthy isn't just that it's a "privacy coin," but that it could become another cryptographic store of value beyond Bitcoin. Bitcoin offers a publicly auditable, scarce, and decentralized monetary system, while Zcash seeks to add optional privacy to similar monetary properties.

This does not mean Zcash can replace Bitcoin. More likely, both will fulfill different needs and coexist as complementary assets. Just as gold and silver can both serve as stores of value, the crypto market may also accommodate more than one store-of-value asset.

Before discussing ZEC, it’s important to first assess where the broader crypto market stands. I believe the market may be entering the early stages of a new bull cycle, primarily for two reasons.

First, currency depreciation trades have returned to investors' attention.

As the market refocuses on fiscal expansion, long-term interest rates, and fiat currency purchasing power, both gold and bitcoin have rebounded significantly from their lows. More importantly, investors’ understanding of bitcoin is shifting. Five years ago, much of the capital still viewed bitcoin as a highly leveraged proxy for Nasdaq or a purely speculative instrument; today, an increasing amount of traditional capital is beginning to place it within the framework of currency depreciation and a store of value.

These funds come from outside the cryptocurrency market and are expected to provide new sources of demand for Bitcoin. Even if Bitcoin does not rise rapidly in the short term, its price may still be supported as long as external capital continues to allocate to it.

Second, crypto-native investors may already be overly pessimistic.

Market sentiment often reaches extremes at tops and bottoms. The rally in the fourth quarter of last year was seen as virtually guaranteed, prompting investors to complete their allocations in advance, leaving the market without new marginal buyers. Once a price decline catalyst emerged, participants who had fully positioned themselves expecting further gains instead became sellers.

The current situation may be exactly the opposite. Many people are holding large amounts of cash, waiting for further market declines, and any bullish sentiment is seen as a dangerous sign of a top. This suggests that market positioning may already be significantly defensive. Once the market recovers and external funds re-enter, the prevailing pessimistic consensus could be overturned.

However, the new rally may not benefit all tokens. Cryptocurrency assets are experiencing a "K-shaped divergence": on one side are store-of-value assets like Bitcoin and ZEC, along with projects that generate income and return value to holders through mechanisms like buybacks; on the other side are projects lacking real demand and continuing to face pressure from token unlocks and sell-offs.

Over the past few months, Bitcoin has shown relatively little overall volatility, but a few assets such as HYPE, LIT, and ZEC have significantly outperformed. This resembles an internal reallocation of capital: investors are selling tokens that underperformed in the previous cycle and reallocating funds into assets with store-of-value properties, cash flow, or clear narratives.

Zcash has been operating for nearly a decade, yet it has largely underperformed throughout most of that time. Over the past nine years, it has not only failed to meet early market expectations but has also consistently trailed behind Bitcoin and major crypto assets. Now, with its price suddenly breaking out of a long-standing range, market attention and trading momentum are rising in tandem—I do not believe this shift should be dismissed as mere short-term speculation.

An important indicator for evaluating Zcash's fundamentals is the amount of ZEC in the shielded pool.

The shielded pool can be understood as a collection of funds for Zcash privacy transactions. The more users and assets enter the pool, the lower the proportion of any single transaction within the overall collection, making it harder to identify individual transactions. Over the past two years, the amount of ZEC entering the shielded pool has gradually increased, indicating that more assets are beginning to use Zcash’s privacy features.

Of course, an increase in the shielded pool balance does not directly prove growth in the number of real users. Due to the privacy-preserving nature of transactions, outsiders cannot determine how many users these assets come from or their specific purposes. However, compared to years of near-stagnation, this change remains noteworthy.

More importantly, Zcash's fundamentals may depend simultaneously on the amount of ZEC in the shielded pool and the dollar value of those ZEC.

If the total value of the privacy pool is only $1 million, a user wishing to deposit $10 million would become the most prominent participant in the pool, making effective privacy protection difficult. However, if the pool’s assets reach $10 billion, the same amount of funds would represent only a small portion, significantly expanding the privacy set.

This creates a reflexive mechanism: as the price of ZEC rises, the dollar value held in the shielded pool increases; a larger pool of funds enhances the accessibility of privacy features for high-value users; increased usage may further strengthen Zcash’s network effects and store-of-value narrative, attracting even more capital.

Here, "reflexivity" refers to the fact that price changes influence investors' perceptions of an asset, and can even alter the asset's underlying usage conditions; improvements in fundamentals then feed back to drive prices further. This cycle is especially pronounced for store-of-value assets that rely on consensus and network effects.

Unlike exchange tokens, ZEC does not generate cash flows that can be used for valuation. After assets like HYPE or LIT rise in price to a certain level, the valuation appeal of their income and buybacks may decline; in contrast, the potential market for store-of-value assets depends on how much wealth investors are willing to allocate, with a much higher theoretical ceiling.

During the video recording, the price of ZEC was approximately $850, with a market cap roughly equivalent to 1% of Bitcoin's. My optimistic scenario is that if Zcash gradually comes to be viewed as a second cryptocurrency store of value alongside Bitcoin, its market cap could potentially reach 5% to 15% of Bitcoin's in the future.

If the price of Bitcoin doubles and the market cap gap between ZEC and BTC narrows, ZEC’s dollar price could benefit from both the rise in Bitcoin and improved relative valuation. This is what I understand as the source of asymmetric risk-reward.

This is merely a scenario analysis, not a definitive price prediction. Zcash’s current store-of-value consensus, liquidity, and institutional holding size are far behind those of Bitcoin. Whether it can truly achieve a revaluation depends on continued improvements in privacy adoption, technical reliability, and new capital inflows.

On August 25, Grayscale’s Zcash ETF began trading on NYSE Arca under the ticker ZCSH, offering traditional investors a new way to gain exposure to the spot price of ZEC. However, this product is not a registered investment company under the U.S. Investment Company Act of 1940 and differs in regulatory protections and risk structure from conventional ETFs.

The significance of an ETF lies in lowering the barrier to entry, but listing itself does not equate to established institutional demand. What truly matters is monitoring subsequent net subscriptions, holding size, and trading activity. If traditional capital begins to flow in consistently, while the shielded pool assets continue to grow, Zcash’s reflexive logic will be further supported.

My experience trading with Zcash has not been smooth.

From April to May this year, I began buying ZEC below $400 and increased my position as the price rose. At the time, I believed ZEC might break out of its long-term range in the second quarter.

Subsequently, researchers disclosed a potential integrity vulnerability in the Orchard shielded pool. Under specific conditions, attackers could theoretically forge shielded assets, threatening the credibility of ZEC’s supply. While public information has not proven that the vulnerability was ever exploited, for a store-of-value asset that relies on scarcity and trust, the mere possibility of covert inflation is sufficient to undermine market confidence.

After the message was released, ZEC dropped more than 60% at one point. I was concerned this incident might permanently damage Zcash’s integrity as a store of value, so I closed my spot positions, selling some ZEC below $300.

This was a very painful loss. A few years ago, I might have removed Zcash from my watchlist entirely and never considered buying it again. But after closing the position, I set a condition for myself: if ZEC can return to its pre-event price range, I will reassess and buy back.

Later, ZEC did recover its losses. I eventually re-established my position at a higher price than my sell price.

This behavior appears typical of selling low and buying high, but my assessment is that the price recovery indicates the market has not entirely abandoned Zcash. The vulnerability and panic could have destroyed its store-of-value consensus, but if Zcash rebounds after fixing the issue, it instead suggests a degree of "antifragility."

This is similar to the multiple crises Bitcoin experienced in its early days. Bitcoin faced exchange failures, hacker attacks, and regulatory crackdowns, yet continued to operate after each shock. The longer a system endures and the more pressure it withstands, the stronger the market’s trust in its ability to survive may become.

However, price recovery does not mean all technical risks have disappeared. It only indicates that the market is willing to reassume risk, not that there are no other unknown vulnerabilities in the protocol. For Zcash, it remains essential to observe whether the fix can operate stably over the long term and whether the market can continue to trust its supply integrity.

This experience made me reconsider how investors should handle losing and winning positions.

Many people keep averaging down after price declines because they’re unwilling to admit their judgment might be wrong; once prices rise again, they rush to lock in profits. As a result, winning positions are sold too early, while losing assets continue to accumulate.

My approach is the opposite: I first establish investment assumptions and set an initial position; then, as price, fundamentals, and market momentum begin to validate this thesis, I gradually increase my exposure. If the original logic no longer holds, I accept the loss and exit.

Suppose an investor believes Bitcoin will rise from $1,000 to $10,000 and establishes a small position. When the price increases to $2,000, as long as the original reasoning remains unchanged, this upward movement actually increases the likelihood that Bitcoin will continue toward its target. In this scenario, the market is validating the investor’s thesis, not merely making the asset “more expensive.”

This is also why I continued to add to my position after repurchasing ZEC. I hold spot assets and have used some leverage, while setting a stop-loss for the position. Currently, this trade represents the majority of my net worth, as I believe ZEC is my most confident opportunity.

This does not mean others should replicate this position. Concentrated holdings combined with leverage can rapidly amplify incorrect judgments; high confidence does not equate to a high win rate. If so-called "market validation" consists only of price increases without supporting evidence such as adoption, capital inflows, or protocol progress, it easily becomes a self-justifying chase of momentum.

For ZEC to make sense to me, several conditions must hold: the amount of ZEC in the shielded pool continues to grow; ETFs bring in steady new capital; ZEC maintains strength relative to BTC; protocol upgrades sustain market confidence in supply integrity; and privacy and quantum security become increasingly important topics for investors.

Conversely, if privacy adoption stalls, ETF funds fail to continue flowing in, technical risks again erode trust, or ZEC falls back into its original range after a long-term breakout, this assessment will need to be revisited.

Risk in the market cannot be eliminated, only reallocated across different assets and time periods. The real question is not how to find a risk-free trade, but which risks are worth taking and whether you can exit promptly if your judgment is wrong.

I view ZEC as a rare opportunity that’s hard to replicate because it has endured nearly a decade of issuance, stagnation, and market neglect—now, its price, adoption, product channels, and privacy narrative are all beginning to shift simultaneously. This history is nearly impossible to recreate with a newly launched VC token or memecoin.

Ultimately, my bet isn’t just on ZEC continuing to rise, but on a self-reinforcing cycle forming between price, privacy adoption, institutional access, and store-of-value consensus. Whether this cycle can persist will be validated by future data and market performance. But when a high-confidence conviction begins to be confirmed, I want the courage to take a position large enough to make an impact—while retaining the ability to exit if the logic breaks down.

[Video link]