Arthur Hayes has put Zcash at the center of his crypto thesis, saying in an 
interview with Unchained founder Laura Shin that ZEC is now “probably my 
largest position outside of Bitcoin.” The BitMEX co-founder framed the trade 
as a bet on rising demand for financial privacy as AI, Big Tech and 
governments make public-chain activity easier to analyze. Hayes said he views 
Zcash as the strongest privacy asset in crypto, while acknowledging that the 
debate between Zcash, Monero and other privacy coins remains unsettled. “I 
think Zcash is the best,” Hayes said. He added that he is “not a 
cryptographer,” but said his view was shaped by reading competing arguments 
and speaking with developers working directly on privacy systems. His argument 
was not that Bitcoin should become fully private. Hayes said Bitcoin’s 
transparent ledger still has advantages for accountability, but argued that 
transparency comes with a growing trade-off as surveillance tools improve. 
“With AI, big tech and big government, it’s very trivial to de-anonymize 
transactions,” he said. Related Reading: Zcash Hits New YTD High As Multicoin 
Discloses ZEC Bet That, in Hayes’ view, creates room for a separate privacy 
asset to accrue value alongside Bitcoin rather than inside it. He described 
Zcash and Monero as trading at very low relative values versus BTC and called 
the setup asymmetric if privacy demand becomes more obvious to investors. The 
catalyst, as he sees it, is not merely regulatory pressure or user preference, 
but the exponential improvement of AI systems that can link activity across 
public data sets. Arthur on why the Zcash and NEAR integration is the quietly 
building mechanism that flips NEAR from inflationary to deflationary &#8220;Shielded 
Zcash lets you swap and send any coin, USDT on Tron, Bitcoin, anything, and 
that transaction will not point back to you. Completely… 
https://t.co/AOWKNsDRbc pic.twitter.com/tytoAgM5q0 — Laura Shin (@laurashin) 
May 12, 2026 Hayes Connects Zcash And NEAR In Latest Essay Hayes extended that 
thesis in his latest Crypto Trader Digest essay, “The Butterfly Touch,” dated 
May 11 on his Substack. In the essay, Hayes argued that rising dollar and yuan 
liquidity, driven by AI infrastructure spending, geopolitical conflict and 
renewed credit creation, has reopened the risk-on window for crypto markets. 
He said Bitcoin bottomed earlier this year at $60,000 and argued that a move 
back to $126,000 is a “foregone conclusion” if fiat liquidity keeps expanding. 
Related Reading: Zcash Is Crypto’s Most Mispriced Asset, Cypherpunk CIO Says 
The essay’s altcoin section was more explicit. Hayes wrote that it is “time to 
shitcoin,” saying Hyperliquid and Zcash are already large enough positions for 
Maelstrom, while NEAR is his “next favorite” trade. He said his next essay 
would lay out why the “privacy narrative” combined with Near Intents could 
create a “positive cash flow situation” for the protocol. That framing links 
Zcash and NEAR under a broader privacy-and-utility thesis. Zcash represents 
Hayes’ preferred pure-play privacy exposure, while NEAR appears to be the next 
asset he wants to connect to that theme through intent-based execution and 
potential protocol-level cash flow. He argued that such a setup could help 
reverse NEAR’s weak token performance and potentially push it back toward 
older cycle highs. For Zcash, Hayes’ case is more direct. He said privacy is 
likely to become more valuable as public blockchains become easier to 
interrogate with increasingly capable AI systems. “People want that privacy,” 
he said. “And there will be a private alternative.” At press time, Zcash 
traded at $541.75. Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from 
TradingView.com

Arthur Hayes Says Zcash Is His Largest Crypto Position Outside Bitcoin

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Arthur Hayes Says Zcash Is His Largest Crypto Position Outside Bitcoin

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