Okada_Research(@Okada_DeFi0x):CT dunked on Garrett as the $ZEC giga bear who might actually still be giga long lol. His $ZEC short on Hyperliquid somehow became the unpaid marketing department for the entire Zcash eco too. $ZEC ran to $1.5K+, I think there are 2 different supply sinks fighting over: – ZCSH held ~596K ZEC, ~$915M AUM and +$271M cumulative net inflow – 4.92M ZEC / 29% of issued supply shielded, ~3.97M sitting in the new Ironwood pool Both CT and TradFi removing coins from the easy exchange float. There’s also one detail I think almost nobody missed. ZCSH charges 2.5% and Grayscale says 100% of its management fees will support Zcash ecosystem development + marketing for ZCSH. At ~$915M AUM = $23M annualized fee stream if AUM stays around here. But Zcash still has no general smart contracts and no live ZSA standard, so almost every “native ZEC token/NFT” appearing rn is hacked together through either transparent UTXO inscriptions. A marketplace database tied to your ZEC address, or a custom indexer interpreting shielded payments. The payment can be real $ZEC while the “asset” you bought is basically a database row + social consensus. But janky primitives + huge new liquidity + no established winner is usually where trenches start. @zksnarks_: 8,000 NFTs cleared at 1.5 ZEC each = 12,000 ZEC sent to the team @SHLDdotfun: building pumpfun around shielded ZEC, the bonding curve/reserve stays public while buyers can remain hidden @zec_bit: Genesis 3,333 pixel PFPs, free mint done. Runs a launchpad, @ZECPUNKSNFT was first external collection to sell out on it. @zaddrnet: 2,800 identities, readable/public identity with the ownership/payment side built around privacy. @zecfrogs: 6,969 pixel frogs, planning a free mint + its own “Pond” launchpad, using Noir u1 addresses. @Zeccatnft: 3,333 pixel-cat collection currently in WL stage, with mint flow built around Zcash addresses. @ZecMarket: P2P marketplace that lets Phantom/Metamask pay in ETH/SOL/USDC and spins a shielded vault. @diadepixales: experimental inscription marketplace using transparent Zcash UTXOs; inscriptions lose continuity if the underlying ZEC is shielded. $ZEC spent the last year proving it can become money again. Now everything is early, no settled app layer to catch all that capital. What I’m seeing right now is there are actually two ZEC races happening at once. – the protocol people are racing to make private money faster and easier to hold/use. – the trenches are racing to own users, liquidity and distribution before Zcash even gives them a proper native asset layer. Next checkpoints are ZCSH’s 3-for-1 split Sep 30 → NU7 testnet Oct 6 → go/no-go Oct 20 → Zcon7 Oct 27-29 → targeted NU7 mainnet Nov 5. I think this cycle gonna have a lot of fun around the privacy chain.

2026.09.22 05:50

CT dunked on Garrett as the $ZEC giga bear who might actually still be giga long lol. His $ZEC short on Hyperliquid somehow became the unpaid marketing department for the entire Zcash eco too. $ZEC ran to $1.5K+, I think there are 2 different supply sinks fighting over: – ZCSH held ~596K ZEC, ~$915M AUM and +$271M cumulative net inflow – 4.92M ZEC / 29% of issued supply shielded, ~3.97M sitting in the new Ironwood pool Both CT and TradFi removing coins from the easy exchange float. There’s also one detail I think almost nobody missed. ZCSH charges 2.5% and Grayscale says 100% of its management fees will support Zcash ecosystem development + marketing for ZCSH. At ~$915M AUM = $23M annualized fee stream if AUM stays around here. But Zcash still has no general smart contracts and no live ZSA standard, so almost every “native ZEC token/NFT” appearing rn is hacked together through either transparent UTXO inscriptions. A marketplace database tied to your ZEC address, or a custom indexer interpreting shielded payments. The payment can be real $ZEC while the “asset” you bought is basically a database row + social consensus. But janky primitives + huge new liquidity + no established winner is usually where trenches start. @zksnarks_: 8,000 NFTs cleared at 1.5 ZEC each = 12,000 ZEC sent to the team @SHLDdotfun: building pumpfun around shielded ZEC, the bonding curve/reserve stays public while buyers can remain hidden @zec_bit: Genesis 3,333 pixel PFPs, free mint done. Runs a launchpad, @ZECPUNKSNFT was first external collection to sell out on it. @zaddrnet: 2,800 identities, readable/public identity with the ownership/payment side built around privacy. @zecfrogs: 6,969 pixel frogs, planning a free mint + its own “Pond” launchpad, using Noir u1 addresses. @Zeccatnft: 3,333 pixel-cat collection currently in WL stage, with mint flow built around Zcash addresses. @ZecMarket: P2P marketplace that lets Phantom/Metamask pay in ETH/SOL/USDC and spins a shielded vault. @diadepixales: experimental inscription marketplace using transparent Zcash UTXOs; inscriptions lose continuity if the underlying ZEC is shielded. $ZEC spent the last year proving it can become money again. Now everything is early, no settled app layer to catch all that capital. What I’m seeing right now is there are actually two ZEC races happening at once. – the protocol people are racing to make private money faster and easier to hold/use. – the trenches are racing to own users, liquidity and distribution before Zcash even gives them a proper native asset layer. Next checkpoints are ZCSH’s 3-for-1 split Sep 30 → NU7 testnet Oct 6 → go/no-go Oct 20 → Zcon7 Oct 27-29 → targeted NU7 mainnet Nov 5. I think this cycle gonna have a lot of fun around the privacy chain.

Okada_Research@Okada_DeFi0x

2026.05.22 14:09

Besides $HYPE, $ZEC has easily become one of the most discussed tokens across the entire market recently. And honestly, I think this is a major signal that Privacy is slowly becoming one of the biggest narratives of the next cyclem especially as AI continues scaling aggressively. What makes this even more interesting is that several privacy-focused projects have already survived some of the hardest conditions imaginable over the past few years: – Delistings – Regulatory pressure – Being ignored by the market for nearly 2 years Yet projects like @Zcash are proving that privacy remains an essential layer for blockchain, AI, and the broader crypto economy. As AI agents, autonomous payments, and onchain identity systems continue growing, demand for privacy infrastructure could become exponentially larger than most people currently expect. I’ve recently been paying close attention to several privacy projects that stand out the most to me right now: 1/ @AskVenice - $VVV Privacy-focused AI infrastructure and inference layer. One of the newer projects starting to attract attention as AI + privacy narratives begin merging together more aggressively. 2/ @monero - $XMR The most iconic privacy coin and still arguably the strongest standard for default anonymity in crypto. Monero uses ring signatures, stealth addresses, and RingCT to fully obscure senders, receivers, and transaction amounts. Every transaction is private by default, which is why many still consider XMR the gold standard for privacy coins. 3/ @AztecNetwork - $AZTEC A privacy-first zkRollup built on Ethereum focused heavily on programmable privacy and private smart contracts. Aztec allows users to choose what remains public and what stays private while still leveraging Ethereum settlement through zk-SNARK technology. This feels especially powerful for the future of private DeFi applications. 4/ @Zama - $ZAMA One of the most interesting confidentiality infrastructure projects using Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE). The biggest advantage here is the ability to compute directly on encrypted data without decrypting it first. That unlocks massive potential for confidential computing, AI, and fully private DeFi systems across both EVM and non-EVM ecosystems. 5/ @SecretNetwork - $SCRT A privacy computing platform focused on encrypted smart contracts and private application infrastructure. Data inside contracts remains encrypted and only accessible to authorized users. Secret Network has been heavily focused on building private DeFi primitives like lending, swaps, and NFTs. Personally, these are currently the five privacy projects I think have the highest potential to create major breakthroughs during 2026. Among them, I’m especially paying close attention to $AZTEC and $ZAMA due to their strong technological positioning, massive funding rounds, and backing from some of the top VCs across crypto. Privacy honestly feels massively underpriced relative to where the industry is heading. The more AI expands, the more valuable privacy infrastructure becomes.

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