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Pioneer of the cryptocurrency industry and Gemini co-founder, Tyler Winklevoss, has publicly endorsed estimates suggesting that Zcash could reach $9,700 if it captures just 1% of global offshore wealth. Winklevoss Capital has already packed 303,000 ZEC into the public company Cypherpunk Technologies (CYPH).
But there is a catch: while X is filled with moonshot projections, the privacy coin is still trading 22% below its peak from six months ago.
Inside thesis for ZEC coin to capture 0.5% of Gold's market cap
The latest wave of discussion was triggered by a post from Cypherpunk CIO Will McEvoy. His model is simple: Zcash today is a tiny asset compared to giants like Gold or BTC. According to his calculations, if the coin captures just 1% of the offshore wealth market or 10% of Bitcoin's market share, the price of ZEC automatically moves into the zone above $9,700.
However, current numbers look far more grounded. Despite a powerful 70% rally over the past week, ZEC is still trading 22% below its six-month high of $735. The gap between the "$10,000 forecast" and the current price suggests that the market still views these charts more as theory than an inevitable future.
Still, Winklevoss Capital executed an elegant strategy by reorganizing Leap Therapeutics into Cypherpunk Technologies, effectively turning CYPH into a legal Zcash treasury directly on the US stock market. The structure now holds 303,906 ZEC on its balance sheet, while the average purchase price stands at $332.83, already generating a 69% profit at the time of writing.
Interest in privacy-focused assets is being fueled by more than just Winklevoss tweets. According to Santiment data, blockchain transparency in 2026 has become toxic for large capital.
Against the backdrop of tightening KYC rules and widespread adoption of AI-powered surveillance tools, Zcash, with its mathematically proven privacy protections, is becoming a scarce asset. But there is another side to this story: when figures on the scale of the Winklevoss twins begin publicly amplifying interest in an asset they already accumulated for millions of dollars, it is always a reason for healthy skepticism.
What we are witnessing is an attempt to turn Zcash into the "new Bitcoin", and Cypherpunk into the "new Strategy". The fundamental demand for privacy in the AI era is clearly there, but for that "serious upside" thesis to materialize, the industry will have to believe in these numbers far more than it currently believes in the price of Zcash on the screen.
Dan Burgin
U.Today Editorial Team
