Zcash Gains High-Profile Backing as Winklevoss Calls ZEC an AI Hedge

Cameron Winklevoss thinks Zcash could trade "easily above $5,000 a coin." The Gemini co-founder made the call in an interview with Maxine Desalle published on Tuesday, 20 October.

The number will get the attention, but the argument behind it is more unusual. He isn't pointing to Bitcoin's calendar or a chart pattern. He's pointing to artificial intelligence.

How Winklevoss Gets From $25 Billion to Fivefold

Winklevoss started from Zcash's size. He put its market value at about $25 billion, roughly 2% of Bitcoin's, and said privacy is worth more than that.

Then he moved one dial. If Zcash were worth 10% of Bitcoin's market value instead of 2%, he said, ZEC would rise fivefold.

That's the whole model, and it's worth seeing it plainly. It doesn't forecast adoption or fees. It's a claim about what a share of Bitcoin's value privacy deserves. If you accept his ratio, the math follows. If you don't, it doesn't.

Why He Thinks AI Matters More Than the Halving

His reasoning is that financial privacy gets weaker as AI gets better, and that this makes private money more valuable.

That leads him to a second point. Winklevoss said Zcash may not follow Bitcoin's four-year halving cycle, and that its price tracks AI developments more closely than it tracks Bitcoin's chart.

It's a tidy idea: a coin whose demand rises with the thing that threatens privacy. It's also an investor's thesis, not a measured relationship. His comments are known through published accounts of the interview, and the original recording wasn't available to check.

A Treasury Company Already Making the Same Bet

Winklevoss isn't alone in framing Zcash this way. Cypherpunk (CYPH) says on its own website that it holds the largest public Zcash treasury. It calls ZEC "societally critical as AI, quantum, and other advanced technologies threaten human privacy, security, and freedom."

The company's page lays out the stack in detail:

• Holdings: 332,361.68 ZEC
• Goal: ownership of 5% of the Zcash network
• Largest purchase: 203,775.27 ZEC for $50 million, at $245.37 a coin, in late 2025
• Mining: a $33.33 million outlay on 18 August 2026, followed by 3,023.13 mined ZEC on 31 August and 5,944.17 on 30 September
• Company value: a market capitalisation of $706.97 million, with the stock at $2.81

The mining line is the interesting design choice. Cypherpunk says it runs the largest Zcash mining fleet, so it's adding coins by producing them as well as buying them. The September haul was nearly double August's.

Two things aren't settled. How much of Zcash's circulating supply Cypherpunk now holds wasn't confirmed, and the progress bar on its homepage currently reads 0.00% against the 5% goal. A reported investment in Cypherpunk by Winklevoss Capital also hasn't been confirmed against a company filing.

What Would Test the AI Hedge Idea

Winklevoss has offered something checkable. If ZEC's price really answers to AI news more than to Bitcoin's four-year rhythm, that should show up over time in how the coin trades.

Until then, the $5,000 figure is one investor's view of what privacy is worth. Cypherpunk's growing pile of mined and purchased ZEC shows at least one company is acting on a similar belief, with a stated target still well ahead of it.