Cypherpunk Technologies holds $500M of Zcash and 18% of its mining hashrate

Why McEvoy thinks Zcash broke out after years of dormancy

Will McEvoy, CIO of Cypherpunk Technologies and a principal at Winklevoss Capital, told the host that Zcash's move from roughly $50 to $150 over about 13 months stems from growing awareness of AI's ability to deanonymize transparent ledgers like Bitcoin. He argued that AI can tie wallet data to leaked personal information such as addresses or phone numbers, which has "scared a lot of Bitcoiners."

Asked why Zcash stayed dormant for years after AI's emergence, McEvoy said AI progress has been exponential, and that Zcash has more recently attracted top cryptographers and security engineers who are "battle testing the code" and shipping applications like Zod and Visor wallets. He compared the network to a venture-backed company where talent drives investor confidence.

McEvoy also pointed to a broader chaotic macro backdrop — wars, supply chain disruption, rising government power — as a reason people want a private store of value. He said he is optimistic about privacy's future in the US specifically, calling it "foundational" to the Bill of Rights, while being more cautious about China given its level of control.

Who is buying, according to McEvoy

McEvoy said some of the capital flowing into Zcash comes from large Bitcoin holders who have "woken up" to the fact that their wallets may soon be identifiable, undermining the pseudonymity that originally drew them to Bitcoin. The host raised the idea that AI could eventually be used to compile lists of top Bitcoin holders with names and addresses; McEvoy agreed this is "a major risk" that will intensify as AI gets better at connecting leaked data.

On existing privacy tools for Bitcoin, such as coin-join services, McEvoy said he believes "AI breaks a lot of these things," distinguishing them from what he called "true cipherpunk privacy" built on zero-knowledge guarantees, as opposed to web2-style privacy that can still be subpoenaed or accessed by insiders.

Inside Cypherpunk Technologies' structure

McEvoy was emphatic that Cypherpunk is not a "DAT," describing it instead as a publicly traded privacy company built on three pillars: holding Zcash, mining Zcash, and investing in the privacy ecosystem. He said the company holds about 325,000-326,000 ZEC, worth "about 500 million, a bit under," and operates what he called the world's largest Zcash mining operation, controlling roughly 18% of network hashrate.

He said the company's enterprise value — which includes outstanding warrants — is around $1 billion, higher than its market cap because warrants held by long-term investors aren't captured in market cap alone. McEvoy estimated the market currently values the Zcash treasury and the mining business at roughly 50/50 within that enterprise value, with potential additional value from venture-style privacy investments like Zcash wallet maker Zod.

The economics behind Zcash mining

McEvoy described Zcash mining as "extremely profitable," citing a profit figure of about $1,000 per megawatt hour, compared with under $150 for Bitcoin mining and about $240 for AI data-center collocation that many former Bitcoin miners have shifted toward. He attributed this to tight, inelastic supply of mining equipment: Bitmain is the only manufacturer of Zcash ASICs, producing what he estimated at "low thousand" units per month, with new orders taking seven to eight months or longer to fulfill.

He compared the current state of Zcash mining to Bitcoin mining in 2016-2017, which he called "the wild west," noting that Bitcoin miners at that time earned between $300 and $400 per megawatt hour — less than half of what Zcash miners earn today. He said Bitmain is unlikely to significantly reallocate chip-fabrication capacity away from Bitcoin toward Zcash given the much larger demand for Bitcoin equipment, and that building a competing ASIC would require costly semiconductor design work and competition for fab capacity with well-funded AI firms.

The host noted that over the past year Zcash's price rose roughly 30x while hashrate rose roughly 3.5x, implying mining profitability increased by a rough multiple over that period. McEvoy said Cypherpunk has held all the Zcash it has mined so far and intends to continue doing so, unlike some other miners that have sold.

Why buy the stock instead of the ETF

Asked why an investor would buy Cypherpunk's stock (ticker CYPH) rather than a Zcash ETF, McEvoy said he'd recommend everyone also buy and shield actual ZEC to strengthen the network's privacy set. But he argued Cypherpunk offers "alpha to Zcash" in the near term through accretive mining profits and treasury growth, and longer term offers exposure to the broader privacy theme, which he called underserved in public markets.

He rejected the idea that Cypherpunk should be valued purely on a premium-to-net-asset-value basis, as with some Bitcoin treasury companies, saying the mining business should be valued separately on a "sum of the parts" basis. He said the company remains open to raising capital to buy more Zcash, more mining equipment, or make further privacy investments, pointing to an earlier $60 million raise used to accumulate Zcash "in the low hundreds" as an example of accretive capital raising.

The Orchard bug and how Cypherpunk responded

McEvoy recounted the Orchard vulnerability, which he said could theoretically have allowed infinite minting of Zcash inside the shielded pool, and during which Zcash's price fell from around $600 to $300. He said he tried to approach the situation "very unemotionally," calling the community's security researchers to assess the risk, and noted the bug was discovered only because a researcher happened to test it against a newly released AI model, Opus 4.8, finding it "within a matter of hours."

"it it did not appear as if someone was like minting Zcash and selling it and that would have been the economic [rational move]" — Will McEvoy

He said the lack of unusual price action, combined with the speed of the community's patch and verification efforts, gave Cypherpunk confidence to treat the dip as a buying opportunity, and confirmed the company did buy during that period.

Targets, risks, and what's left open

McEvoy said Cypherpunk has not issued formal price targets for Zcash, calling the firm an "ultra long-term holder," but floated 10% of Bitcoin's market cap as a reasonable reference point, which he said implies "something like a $10,000 Zcash price" without specifying a timeframe. He also pointed to gold and offshore wealth markets, worth "tens of trillions of dollars," as potential long-term comparables for Zcash's addressable market, though he offered no firm estimate of how much of that Zcash might capture.

The host raised the risk that the Lazarus Group has reportedly begun using Zcash's shielded pool, and separately asked how Zcash might survive if major governments crack down on privacy coins, noting Bitcoin was eventually absorbed into state structures rather than banned. McEvoy acknowledged China poses a tougher issue given its level of control, while expressing optimism that US regulators will recognize privacy as constitutionally foundational — but he did not offer a specific prediction for how governments might ultimately treat Zcash. He confirmed Cypherpunk currently holds "just under 2%" of total Zcash supply, against its stated goal of reaching 5%.