Points of Focus

• Grayscale’s Head of Research identifies Zcash as Bitcoin’s most credible long-term competitor.
• ZEC’s 0.3% market share reaching just 5% of the sector implies an 18x increase in value.
• The SEC cleared Zcash in early 2026, but 10+ countries restrict privacy coins on exchanges.

Bitcoin controls approximately 90% of the $1.6 trillion Currencies Crypto Sector. Grayscale defines this category as blockchains whose primary function is value transfer rather than smart contract execution or DeFi infrastructure. Among the remaining 10%, Grayscale’s Head of Research Zach Pandl has identified one competitor as the most credible long-term threat to that dominance, and that’s Zcash.

The one thing Bitcoin cannot do

The argument is not about speed, scalability or developer activity. It’s about a single capability Bitcoin structurally cannot offer. Every Bitcoin transaction is permanently visible on a public ledger: sender, receiver and amount. Zcash’s shielded transactions, powered by zk-SNARKs, hide all three. 

Bitcoin still dominates digital currencies (~90% market share).

But if anything’s going to chip away at that over time, writes @lowbeta, Zcash $ZEC is worth watching.

Why?
→ Privacy: $BTC is fully transparent. Zcash lets users shield transactions (sender, receiver, amount).… pic.twitter.com/k866tqCb9l

— Grayscale (@Grayscale) March 19, 2026

Shielded supply has climbed to 4.9 million ZEC. This is approximately 30% of total supply, driven by growing use of partially shielded flows and improved wallet infrastructure like the Zashi unified-address wallet. The privacy use case is not theoretical, it is being actively adopted.

The 18x Math

ZEC currently trades at approximately $234, giving it a market cap of roughly $3.38 billion, 0.3% of the Currencies Crypto Sector. Pandl’s calculation is straightforward: if Zcash captured just 5% of this market segment, its value would be 18 times greater. That is not a price target. It is a market share scenario that shows how massive the opportunity is relative to where ZEC sits today.

The coin is up nearly 10x since October 2025 as interest in on-chain privacy has seen a comeback. Advances in zero-knowledge proving, unified-address wallets, and cross-chain rails such as NEAR Intents have meaningfully lowered the friction of adopting on-chain privacy. The momentum Pandl references in Grayscale’s note is real and on-chain verifiable, not driven by narrative or speculation.

Execution risk stack

The bull case carries specific execution risks that Grayscale’s note acknowledges but does not fully detail. For instance, in January 2026, the entire Electric Coin Company development team resigned following a governance dispute. Consequently, they formed an independent company to continue wallet development. 

Also, at least 10 countries, including Japan, South Korea, and India, restrict or ban privacy coins on regulated exchanges as of March 2026, limiting on-ramps and compressing liquidity. The EU’s Anti-Money Laundering Regulation, expected by 2027, is already driving preemptive delistings across European platforms.

🇪🇺The EU's new Anti-Money Laundering Authority is currently drafting the technical standards that will define who can access financial services across 27 countries from 2027.

This is not a consultation on principles, it is a consultation on the specific rules: what documents you… pic.twitter.com/Z1QdvZLvSU

— The Rage (@theragetech) March 17, 2026

This inconsistent application of regulations is where the most tension is. In early 2026, the SEC brought its Zcash investigation to a close without enforcement, a meaningful clearing event for US institutional capital. However, international exchange restrictions mean that the capital pool available to reprice ZEC toward Pandl’s 5% scenario is structurally blocked by compliance barriers. To make matters worse, these barriers don’t even apply to Bitcoin.

What Grayscale is actually saying

Pandl’s note is more of a market structure argument than it is a price prediction, and here’s why. The Currencies Crypto Sector has a privacy gap, one that Bitcoin cannot fill. Zcash is therefore the most credible asset positioned to do so. Zcash’s recent breakout seems like a repricing of fundamentals already shifting beneath the surface. Shielded supply began rising well before the rally, supported by faster proofs. Also, it had better wallet UX and easier cross-chain access on its side.

The 18x figure assumes the privacy use case gets institutionally priced. Whether that happens depends less on Zcash’s technology, whose functionality cannot be denied. It rests heavily on whether regulators in the jurisdictions that matter decide financial privacy is a feature or a threat.