CoinDesk
Multicoin Capital has built a "significant position" in Zcash, Co-Founder and Managing Partner Tushar Jain said on a Consensus Miami panel, framing the bet around the view that private stores of value will matter more as finance migrates on-chain. Jain declined to disclose the size of the holding, but the disclosure itself marks a sharp reversal from the firm's 2019 essay, which argued that "privacy is a feature of valuable cryptocurrencies, not a product offering in and of itself" and that users should not have to sell BTC or ETH for ZEC to obtain it. ZEC is trading near $570, up roughly 122% over the past month and more than 1,500% on the year as privacy-focused assets have led an altcoin rotation.
Why it matters
The Multicoin reversal is a sentiment tell because the 2019 critique was one of the most cited bear cases against Zcash in a generation of crypto funds. Walking that back in front of a Consensus audience — and tying the new thesis to on-chain finance specifically — gives institutional cover to a sector that has spent most of the cycle being dismissed as a cypherpunk remnant. CoinDesk Research puts 20% to 25% of circulating ZEC in shielded addresses and roughly 30% of transactions touching the encrypted pool, while Grayscale has argued ZEC's upside is tied to a repricing of financial privacy in an AI-driven world.
Market impact
The broader panel reframed privacy as a market-structure problem rather than an ideology: Jain said public wallets expose funds to surveillance and front-running, Helius CEO Mert Mumtaz said visible DeFi positions can be hunted, and Zama CPO Arik Galansky pitched fully homomorphic encryption as the path to private shared state across DeFi. Vibhu Norby of the Solana Foundation said Solana builders are working on a privacy product that preserves composability, even as the network's ZK ElGamal confidential-transfer program remains disabled on mainnet and devnet during a security audit. Zenrock's wrapped ZEC on Solana has already crossed $15 million in volume, suggesting the bridge between Zcash demand and Solana liquidity is functioning while native Solana privacy tooling catches up.
Frequently asked questions
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What did Multicoin Capital actually do with Zcash?
Multicoin Capital built a "significant position" in ZEC, Co-Founder and Managing Partner Tushar Jain said on a Consensus Miami panel. Jain declined to disclose the size of the holding.
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Why is the Multicoin ZEC position a notable reversal?
In a 2019 essay Multicoin argued that "privacy is a feature of valuable cryptocurrencies, not a product offering in and of itself" and that users should not need to sell BTC or ETH for ZEC to gain privacy. The new ZEC position walks that critique back.
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How much has Zcash (ZEC) rallied?
ZEC is trading near $570, up roughly 122% over the past month and more than 1,500% over the past year as privacy-focused cryptocurrencies have gained traction.
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What is the broader privacy thesis the Consensus panel laid out?
Panelists framed privacy as a market-structure problem: Tushar Jain said public wallets expose funds to surveillance and front-running, Helius CEO Mert Mumtaz said visible DeFi positions can be hunted, and Zama's Arik Galansky pitched fully homomorphic encryption as a path to private shared state across DeFi.
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How does Solana fit into the privacy trade?
Vibhu Norby of the Solana Foundation said Solana builders are working on a privacy product that preserves DeFi composability, though the network's ZK ElGamal confidential-transfer program is currently disabled on mainnet and devnet during a security audit. Zenrock's wrapped ZEC on Solana has already crossed $15…
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