Both Winklevoss and Silbert backed firms are heavily expanding Zcash mining power.
Grayscale launched a Zcash ETF while the Winklevoss brothers filed their own.
Artificial intelligence models recently helped uncover a severe security vulnerability in Zcash.
Cryptocurrency investors are turning their attention to privacy-focused digital assets, which allow users to conceal certain transaction details. Zcash, a cryptocurrency with these features, has recorded a sharp increase in price, as prominent Bitcoin investors expand their presence in its ecosystem.
According to a report by Bloomberg, Zcash has surged roughly 3,000 per cent, drawing increased activity from investor groups linked to Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and Barry Silbert. The rally has renewed attention on the cryptocurrency, which was launched about a decade ago
Zcash’s privacy features have gained attention amid concerns that financial activity on public Blockchains is becoming easier to trace, including with advances in artificial intelligence (AI). Concerns about the exposure of crypto investors’ wealth have also grown following kidnappings and violent robberies targeting them.
A US ruling in March 2025 helped ease some regulatory uncertainty surrounding privacy coins. Zcash was subsequently promoted by some investors as a privacy-focused alternative to Bitcoin.
“It started with a narrative as privacy became a hot topic again, well-known investors started pitching Zcash as a kind of private Bitcoin, and then real money followed,” said Thomas Prob, an analyst at crypto market data firm Kaiko.
The rally has coincided with increased activity from businesses backed by the Winklevoss twins and Silbert. Cypherpunk Technologies, backed by the Winklevoss brothers, and Fortitude Mining, and backed by Silbert, are among the major participants in Zcash mining.
Both firms plan to spend tens of millions of dollars on additional computing power to compete for mining rewards.
Cypherpunk accounts for about 20 per cent of the network’s mining power, while Fortitude expects to reach a similar share following planned installations. Investment products have also become part of the competition. Grayscale, the asset management business of Digital Currency Group, launched a US Zcash exchange-traded fund (ETF) in August 2026. The Winklevoss brothers filed for their own Zcash ETF earlier this month.
However, the rally has also drawn attention to security risks. In May 2026, a security researcher used Anthropic’s Claude AI model to identify a vulnerability in Zcash that had gone undetected for years and could have allowed an attacker to counterfeit an unlimited number of tokens.
