The year 2025 will be written down as the year of digital assets. Michael Saylor’s Strategy and Tom Lee’s Bitmine made headway with strategies based on Bitcoin and Ethereum, while a handful of alternative DATs grabbed the headlines.
Zcash (ZEC), the privacy protocol created by the 2016 hard fork of the Bitcoin codebase, was one of the big winners in 2025. Prominent industry advocates touted the importance of privacy-preserving cryptocurrencies, and Zcash was the outright winner in terms of percentage price increase.
It seemed only a matter of time before the ecosystem welcomed Zcash DAT and the Winklevoss twins beat the competition to the punch.
Gemini co-founders announced the launch of Cypherpunk, which raised $100 million to buy ZEC for its treasury. Tyler Winklevoss said the company intends to accumulate up to 5% of the circulating ZEC supply. To date, Cypherpunk holds 233,644 ZEC.
Speaking exclusively to Cointelegraph during a recent bitcoin conference in Amsterdam, the Winklevoss twins said their new focus on privacy was driven by significant advances in artificial intelligence over the past two years.
Related: Bitcoin and Zcash debate heats up as ZEC retraces the $700 level
“We’re big fans of Bitcoin. We’re hodlers, of course, and also big fans of Zcash, which we think of as encrypted Bitcoin. Bitcoin is where you store your value, and Zcash is where you transact or spend your value, so we launched DAT for Zcash, and we’re really committed to privacy and self-sovereignty this week to help leverage these ideas,” said Tyler Winklevoss.
“The catalyst for Bitcoin was the financial crisis of 2008, and the catalyst for privacy is the dawn of the age of artificial intelligence.”
Tyler Winklecoss remains confident that Bitcoin (BTC) and Zcash will co-exist and complement each other for years to come. Bitcoin could potentially add significant privacy functions by adopting various opcode changes, but the twins said Zcash could act as a privacy layer for transactions, while Bitcoin would continue to serve as an unrivaled digital store of value.
“I think the current world works with Bitcoin and Zcash. Ideally, Bitcoin would have added privacy in the early days, and maybe it will. I think a lot of cryptocurrencies will add privacy over time. Bitcoin has really proven the concept of decentralization and non-government money to a large extent. But there’s still work to do,” said Tyler Winklevoss.
Cypherpunk back in fashion
While there is overwhelming support for Zcash on X, critics have remained skeptical of the newfound fervor for the cryptocurrency. The protocol has been active since 2016, and some continue to question the narrative being pushed by big industry figures.
Cameron Winklevoss said they have been “in favor of Zcash” since its inception nine years ago, acknowledging that the protocol has reached a new tipping point in 2025, similar to what Bitcoin has experienced at various points in its 16-year life:
“Bitcoin has had a few different turning points along the way. I think the first one we experienced was the ‘bail in’ in Cyprus in 2013. That sent Bitcoin up, I mean over $100 in a very short period of time. I think the world suddenly took notice.”
The explosive evolution of artificial intelligence is now creating a similar situation for privacy protocols, and Zcash has seen its own tipping point in recent months. Tyler Winklevoss said developers and advocates involved in the Zcash movement are increasingly positive about its future.
“The people who are excited about Zcash are also the OG Bitcoiners and the cypherpunks who were there in the early days. Zooko Wilcox, as one of the founders of Zcash, is the OG cypherpunk. I think it was only a matter of time,” he said.
“Crypto is not a zero-sum game”
The Winklevoss twins are known as two of the first Bitcoin adopters on Wall Street. According to Reports for 2013the twins bought 100,000 BTC, which were valued at around $11 million.
With Bitcoin trading around $120 per coin, it was a significant bet on the long-term potential of the dominant cryptocurrency. In hindsight, it will go down as a life-changing decision for the brothers.
However, unlike other early Bitcoin OGs who stayed true to BTC and condemned all other cryptocurrencies, the Winklevoss twins were more open-minded to the multitude of protocols and tokens that emerged after Bitcoin.
Related: Can the Rise of Zcash Revive the Bitcoin OP_CAT Debate?
“We don’t look at this as a zero-sum game where the pie is fixed. Bitcoin is clearly gold 2.0. It’s the healthiest money in the world. But when Ethereum came along and started working on innovating the programming capabilities, which I thought was really cool, Bitcoin didn’t want to do that,” said Cameron Winklevoss.
“I don’t think it actually takes away from Bitcoin, if it brings people into the space, let’s say like engineers who want to work on smart contracts in Ethereum who weren’t enthusiastic about it with Bitcoin, then that’s really positive, because once you buy Ethereum, well, then you’re one step closer to buying Bitcoin,” he added.
The result is an evolution that continues to help the industry innovate, and the utility solves the burning problems of the past.
“Bitcoin obviously innovated with proof of work. Ethereum innovated with programmability, and now Zcash with privacy. I like that innovation, I like to see that happen. I think it all adds to the whole pie, including the Bitcoin pie.”
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