Zcash ETF: Wall Street’s Coming for Your Privacy! 😱

So, Grayscale wants to turn Zcash, that little cryptocurrency obsessed with keeping your financial life to itself, into an ETF. An ETF! Honestly, it’s like trying to sell a secret underground bunker to a real estate developer. 🙄

For the folks who actually like the idea of privacy – you know, the sort of people who maybe have an opinion about being constantly tracked – this isn’t just about adding another line item to your brokerage account. It’s about…well, selling out. It’s like introducing a chatty Cathy to a monastery.

A Privacy Coin in an ETF? Seriously?

The application, filed on November 26, 2025 (because naturally it would be a date like that), aims to morph a trust holding a rather respectable 394,000 ZEC – about $197 million worth – into a fully regulated, utterly mainstream exchange-traded fund. You can almost hear the libertarians weeping. 😭

$ZEC is Encrypted Electronic Cash 🛡️@Zcash $ZEC helps make private, on-chain transactions possible.

Grayscale Zcash Trust (Ticker: $ZCSH) is the only U.S publicly listed fund providing exposure solely to @Zcash $ZEC through certain brokerage accounts.

See important…

– Grayscale (@Grayscale) November 26, 2025

Eric Van Tassel, a deeply concerned individual on X (formerly Twitter, which still feels weird to type), points out the glaringly obvious: a ZEC ETF is fundamentally at odds with the whole reason Zcash exists.

“I hope ZEC never gets one, as once that happens, an asset is no longer decentralized,”
Eric declared, which, let’s be honest, is a fairly melodramatic way of saying he’s worried about Wall Street interference. He calls ETFs “a Trojan horse.”

It’s not a problem with ETFs themselves, you understand. It’s that they put all the power in the hands of those pinstripe-suited folk on Wall Street – the very people Zcash was designed to bypass. They’ll be making all the important decisions about who trades, who makes markets, and who holds the keys. It’s a bit like letting the fox guard the henhouse, really.

For a coin obsessed with privacy, that’s… problematic. Almost comically problematic.

“An ETF effectively means that an asset value will be highly influenced and controlled by Wall Street,” Eric warned, as if we hadn’t already figured that out.

And Grayscale already has a hefty chunk of ZEC. They control around 2.4% of the circulating supply – making them one of the biggest players in the privacy coin game. Turning it into an ETF would just… well, you see where this is going.

We’ve seen this movie before. Remember the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC)? When it became an ETF in January 2024, everyone rushed for the exits, causing a bit of a market wobble. The concern is that Zcash could be next.

Data, that cold, hard mistress, suggests people haven’t forgotten those GBTC outflows. Eric thinks it’s no coincidence.

“The recent dump was influenced by these giant institutions that now control many of these assets… Their ultimate goal is to either destroy crypto or completely control it as a part of their CBDC agenda,” he added. Bit dramatic, perhaps, but you can’t say he isn’t committed.

And even before the ETF possibility, the Grayscale Zcash Trust isn’t exactly setting the world on fire.

NAV/Share: $42.59
Market Price: $35.05
Discount: approximately 18%

That discount? It suggests investors aren’t thrilled about the prospect of an ETF, or at least aren’t willing to pay top dollar for something likely to be hit with a wave of selling.

The trust currently manages $205.7 million, charges a hefty 2.5% fee (because, naturally), and has 4.83 million shares outstanding. High fees and regulatory uncertainty? It’s a recipe for…well, let’s not say ‘disaster’, but ‘mild turbulence’ sounds about right. 😬

Why Zcash Was Doing OK, And Why That Might Not Last

Ironically, ZEC has been performing pretty well lately, especially compared to other cryptocurrencies. Some argue that’s because it’s avoided the ETF treatment, letting its price be driven by, you know, actual users and market forces. Imagine that!

“The fact that Zcash does not currently have an ETF might be a good reason why Zcash has been moving so well,” Erin observed. A novel thought!

He even dares to suggest that Bitcoin’s ETF structure might be limiting its potential.

“I see $140,000 to $150,000 max out of Bitcoin this cycle… Money will roll into the assets that these ETFs don’t control,” he indicated. A bold prediction indeed.

Ultimately, the SEC – not the people who actually built Zcash – will decide the fate of this ETF. If approved, it would be the first ETF linked to a major privacy coin, potentially opening the door for others. And possibly ruining Zcash in the process.

Zcash was created as a response to a world increasingly obsessed with surveillance. The question now is can it survive the relentless, gravity-like pull of Wall Street? Or will it become just another tightly controlled asset, indistinguishable from everything else? 🤔

Perhaps this explains why Zcash’s ZEC token is only up by a modest 0.7% in the last 24 hours, despite Grayscale’s best efforts. People, it seems, are wary. And rightfully so.

2025-11-27 09:28

A Privacy Coin in an ETF? Seriously?

Why Zcash Was Doing OK, And Why That Might Not Last

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