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As “crypto winter” continues to reign over the digital assets market this February, the industry’s greatest mind, this time in the face of Binance founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, is busy figuring out what is still missing in the space of cryptocurrencies and how it could be built. For Zhao, it is privacy, and not just in the broader digital assets environment, but in crypto payments and their adoption. Interestingly, the same opinion was expressed by Barry Silbert, CEO of Digital Currency Group and chairman of Grayscale Investments.
'Privacy gap': What's missing in crypto payments? Binance founder answers
In his latest X post on Feb. 15, Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, better known online as CZ, once again stated that the privacy gap is the biggest hurdle for crypto right now - a stance he and Chamath Palihapitiya made public in one of their recent podcasts. To help others understand his opinion, Zhao offered those following him and the crypto public in general to imagine a company paying employees in crypto on-chain. With the current state of crypto, you can see how much everyone in the company is paid by simply clicking the address, says CZ.
It is hard not to agree here, especially from the management point of view, as most executives try to hide employees’ salaries not only from outsiders, but also within the company. Should private crypto payments be made fully compliant and at the same time shielded, a term Zcash made popular again in 2025, there would not be such a problem.
Silbert is of the same opinion, as he expressed it by quote-tweeting Zhao’s post with the laconic yet eloquent caption, “This.”
Barry Silbert’s "asymmetric bet" on privacy
This, by any means, is not the only thing Silbert has to say on the matter, as earlier this week he already made it clear that he is confident in the potential of privacy-focused cryptocurrencies, naming them the next big asymmetric bet in the market, similar to the one he and his company made at the dawn of Bitcoin.
According to the estimates Silbert provided, 5-10% of Bitcoin’s supply could be redirected to privacy coins in the next few years. He stresses that if the U.S. dollar does not collapse, Bitcoin will not grow 500 times, but Zcash (ZEC) could achieve such growth, as could Bittensor (TAO).
Silbert remains optimistic about Bitcoin, but acknowledges that the idea of it as “anonymous money” is no longer relevant in the era of analytics companies such as Chainalysis and Elliptic.
So, while often divided, it seems that crypto industry giants have reached a rare agreement on what is missing in the space right now, and it is not AI, at least not directly, or institutional presence. It is the very thing this market was built on, among other principles - privacy.
Vladislav Sopov
Dan Burgin