In less than a month, ZEC surged from around $486 in mid-August to as high as $1,200, a gain of over 150%. ZEC is an established asset launched in 2016, built on a codebase derived from Bitcoin with the same total supply cap of 21 million coins. Its key distinction lies in its implementation of privacy-preserving transactions using zero-knowledge proofs (shielded transactions), which conceal the sender, recipient, and transaction amount—this is what earned it the designation as a "privacy coin." This rally propelled it into the top ten cryptocurrencies by market capitalization.
Old Grudges Between Two Veterans
Just after the price surged, two old grievances related to Zcash were simultaneously brought up. Wang Chun, co-founder of F2Pool, stated on X that six years ago, because the other party couldn’t even get the time zone right, he outright blocked the entire team—and called this decision one of the “most correct” he’s ever made. “Shen Yu,” co-founder of both the crypto custody platform Cobo and the mining pool F2Pool, shared his own story: On the night of Zcash’s mainnet launch in 2016, after mining a small amount of ZEC, the transformer at his home mining farm was struck by lightning. Since then, he’s carried a psychological aversion to ZEC and has never held it in his personal wallet again.
The price and the criticism rose almost simultaneously.
Digging up the past was just the beginning; half an hour later, Wang Chun posted a longer tweet, breaking down her grievances against Zcash into four more specific arguments—listing them one by one, from the launch mechanism to recent security incidents.
The commission has never stopped.
Wang Chun's first argument is that a coin which directly embeds a self-funding clause into its block reward should not be marketed as a "clean," neutral currency. This refers to Zcash’s design after its mainnet launch—unlike Bitcoin, where block rewards go solely to miners, Zcash does not. For the first four years after mainnet launch, 20% of each block reward was allocated as a "founders' reward," distributed to founders, employees, advisors, and early investors, totaling approximately 2.1 million ZEC over four years—10% of Zcash’s total supply cap of 21 million. Under the original design, this fee was intended to last only four years and expire in 2020, after which Zcash would become a "clean" asset like Bitcoin: all block rewards going exclusively to miners, with no team or institution able to claim any portion of new supply.
However, when the original 2020 incentive cliff expired, the community voted to approve ZIP 1014, which extended the same 20% block subsidy under the name of a "Development Fund," continuing distributions until 2024 to Bootstrap, the Zcash Foundation, and several major grant programs. The mechanism allocating 20% of the block subsidy to non-miners did not disappear with the expiration of the "founder's reward"—it simply changed names and recipients. The practice of deducting 20% from each block before rewarding miners has never truly ended on Zcash.
Privacy is not the default
Zcash's standout technology is zero-knowledge proofs, which can theoretically fully conceal transaction details. However, the protocol itself does not enforce privacy—users are free to choose between shielded (private) addresses and transparent addresses, and some wallets and exchanges still support only transparent addresses for compatibility reasons. Zcash's official team also acknowledges that achieving true transaction privacy requires actively selecting services that default to shielded transactions.
This means that Zcash’s privacy capabilities do not equate to all ZEC circulation being privately protected by default. "Optional privacy" and "default privacy" are two different things—the former is more like a feature toggle, while the latter represents a protocol commitment—and for the past ten years, Zcash has offered only the former.
The entire team has left together.
In January 2026, the team from Electric Coin Company (ECC), responsible for Zcash core development, collectively resigned. ECC stated that irreconcilable differences with the governance body, the Bootstrap Board, forced them out; Bootstrap attributed the conflict to governance arrangements and legal restrictions on nonprofit organizations. Two months later, both parties reached an agreement: ECC would gradually wind down its operations, transferring its technical assets to a newly formed team, with the project itself continuing without interruption.
The storm has subsided, but the fact that a company developing a protocol and holding core technological assets could reach a point of collective resignation from the Bootstrap Board within ECC’s governance structure indicates that this governance framework is still far from mature.
Security vulnerability
On May 29, security researcher Taylor Hornby discovered a flaw in Orchard’s zero-knowledge proof circuit that had lain dormant for approximately four years, theoretically allowing someone to create counterfeit ZEC without leaving any on-chain traces. The team immediately initiated an emergency fix: on June 2, they temporarily halted Orchard-related transactions, and on June 3, restored functionality via NU6.2. During this period, ZEC rebounded from $544 to $624. However, on June 5, prominent investor Arthur Hayes publicly announced he had liquidated his entire ZEC position, stating bluntly that even though the circuit had been patched, no cryptographic method could prove whether the vulnerability had been exploited to mint counterfeit coins over the past four years—“fixed” and “proven not exploited” are two different things. Following this, ZEC rapidly declined, dropping to around $309—nearly halving in value.
This directly undermines Zcash’s core narrative: its total supply is also capped at 21 million, and it has long been marketed as “a more rigorous digital hard currency than Bitcoin”—yet every Bitcoin issuance is publicly recorded on an open ledger that anyone can verify to confirm the total supply. Zcash, in the name of privacy, obscured part of this ledger, leaving no one able to verify over the past four years whether this “hard currency” truly remains within its 21 million cap.
Long-short collision
The bears have both arguments and real capital backing their conviction: Wang Chun believes that making it into the top ten by market cap doesn’t mean ZEC deserves to stand alongside Solana and Hyperliquid, and that this rally is “purely narrative-driven.” Garrett Jin, known as the “1011 Insider Whale Agent,” has demonstrated the same stance through his positions: as of September 8, he still held approximately 39,760 ZEC in short positions on Hyperliquid, with a notional value of about $45 million, at an average entry price of $576.30—despite a paper loss of $22.2 million, he continues to add to his position.
The bullish case isn't just speculative: The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) concluded its multi-year investigation into the Zcash Foundation in January 2026 without taking any enforcement action, removing a long-standing compliance concern for institutional investors; Grayscale estimates that if ZEC’s market cap reaches 2%, 5%, or 10% of Bitcoin’s, the corresponding prices would be $1,622, $4,054, and $8,109, respectively; as of August 29, ZEC’s market cap stood at $13.74 billion, just 0.88% of Bitcoin’s, indicating significant theoretical upside remains. The potential listing of a ZEC ETF would allow traditional capital to gain direct exposure to ZEC without needing to manage wallets or private keys.
They are not arguing about the same thing: one side is calculating how large a market share privacy assets can capture, while the other is assessing whether this team and这套机制 deserve that share.
The account hasn't been settled yet.
ZEC has surged from $309 to over $1,200, completing a dramatic repricing. But this rally has not resolved its longstanding issues—the controversial distribution mechanism, the product paradox of optional privacy, the history of governance infighting, and the trust gap left by the Orchard vulnerability. None of these have vanished with the price increase, and none have been genuinely addressed.
The debate over what is currently supporting ZEC’s price has not yet ended.
The real test isn't whether ZEC can reach another new high, but whether the market is still willing to absorb it at today's price after short sellers are no longer forced to cover and profit-taking begins.
If it can't be absorbed, what remains from this surge may just be another old asset reignited by hype; if it can be absorbed, Zcash will have truly passed its most critical test yet.
By then, it may become clear whether the money flowing back in today is buying a future for privacy assets or just another successful retelling of an old story.
The content in this article is for reference only and does not constitute any investment advice. The market carries risks; investments should be made with caution.