Long-running privacy coin Zcash (ZEC) has continued its recent surge, rising 31% over the last week even as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other major coins are deep in the red—and now a publicly traded treasury firm said it has amassed even more of the rising cryptocurrency.
Cypherpunk Technologies (Nasdaq: CYPH) announced Wednesday has purchased an additional 29,869.29 ZEC (Zcash) for $18 million at an average price of $602.63 per coin.
Combined with the firm’s initial acquisition of 203,775.27 ZEC for $50 million, the company now holds 233,644.56 ZEC at an average price of $291.04, representing 1.43% of the total ZEC supply. Cypherpunk’s ZEC treasury is now valued above $146 million.
Zcash recently traded hands at $626 per coin, up 125% over the last 30 days and marking a more than 15x jump since the start of September. The price of ZEC has eclipsed the $700 mark multiple times so far this month, but has remained volatile, with sizable swings up and down the charts.
Even with the recent upswing, ZEC remains far from its all-time high mark of $3,191 set upon its launch in 2016.
Bitcoin, by contrast, has set a more recent all-time high, peaking above $126,000 in early October. However, it has fallen sharply since, diving to a new seven-month low price of nearly $88,637 on Wednesday. Bitcoin is down more than 12% over the last week, while Zcash has jumped 31% during the same span.
Cypherpunk Technologies launched its Zcash treasury earlier this month with the backing of Winklevoss Capital, the VC firm founded by Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, the co-founders of crypto exchange Gemini. The firm recently appointed veteran investor Khing Oei to its board of directors and Will McEvoy from Winklevoss Capital as both a board member and chief investment officer.
CYPH stock is up nearly 6% on the day to a recent price of $3.14, pushing its one-month gain to 469%.
Launched in 2016 with the help of famed whistleblower Edward Snowden, Zcash was forked from Bitcoin’s codebase with a focus on privacy: Transactions can be “shielded” via zero-knowledge proofs, making it difficult to trace coin movements.
What’s driving the recent surge? Analysts suggest that it may be due in part to concerns around Bitcoin’s growing mainstream profile and interest from Wall Street institutions, pushing crypto natives towards a coin that isn’t as easy to trace on the blockchain.
“Bitcoin itself has always been fully transparent; ETFs haven’t made it any less so, only more intermediated,” Galaxy Digital Research Analyst Will Owens wrote this month. “Zcash’s advocates, by contrast, frame it as ‘encrypted Bitcoin,’ a return to cypherpunk principles that resonate amid widespread on-chain surveillance.”
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