Crypto entrepreneurs Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss used the opening day of the Token2049 conference to make the case for their proposed Zcash exchange-traded fund, touting the privacy-preserving features of the Bitcoin offshoot.
Traders “want exposure to privacy, which is an asset, and it’s a declining asset, it’s a very precious asset in this day and age,” Tyler Winklevoss said during a panel discussion on Zcash at the crypto conference in Singapore on Wednesday.
The identical twins, who are the co-founders of cryptocurrency exchange Gemini, filed through Winklevoss Asset Services to the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday to issue spot ETFs for Zcash. The proposed fund would list on the Nasdaq under the ticker WINK.
Zcash has been one of the biggest winners in cryptocurrency over the past year, rising over 900%, while Bitcoin remains down by a third from its all-time high above $126,000 last October. The token’s profile has risen with interest in so-called privacy coins that obfuscate transaction history, making payments harder to track.
The entrepreneurs likened Zcash to encryption on the internet, which paved the way for online payments and e-commerce, calling it “encrypted Bitcoin.” Zcash was originally a fork of the Bitcoin code.
They also pointed to artificial intelligence as a factor in eroding privacy, boosting the importance of these types of tokens.
“We’re in an era where AI is eating away at privacy,” Tyler Winklevoss said. “Privacy is important to cash.”