Arthur Hayes, co-founder of BitMEX and chief investment officer at Maelstrom, has revealed that Zcash now represents his largest crypto holding outside of Bitcoin. In an interview with Unchained founder Laura Shin, Hayes said ZEC is “probably my largest position outside of Bitcoin” and argued that demand for financial privacy will soar as artificial intelligence and big tech make public blockchain activity easier to de-anonymize.
“With AI, big tech and big government, it’s very trivial to de-anonymize transactions,” Hayes said, adding that such surveillance sets the stage for a privacy asset like Zcash to accrue significant value. He acknowledged the ongoing debate over which privacy coin is best but stated, “I think Zcash is the best,” after speaking with developers and evaluating competing arguments. Hayes framed the trade as asymmetric, pointing to ZEC and Monero trading near multi‑year lows relative to Bitcoin.
The endorsement arrives as Hayes lays out a broader privacy‑and‑utility thesis in his May 11 Substack essay “The Butterfly Touch.” In it, he argued that expanding dollar and yuan liquidity has reopened a risk‑on window for crypto and predicted Bitcoin will return to $126,000. He further said it is “time to shitcoin,” naming Hyperliquid and Zcash as core positions while singling out NEAR as his “next favorite.” Hayes hinted at an upcoming essay explaining how Near Intents and shielded Zcash transactions could flip NEAR from inflationary to deflationary, linking both assets under the privacy narrative.
Separately, the privacy push gained a sharper edge when Helius co‑founder and CEO Mert Mumtaz — a prominent Solana and Zcash advocate — called on the crypto community to abandon Telegram. His statement followed an incident in which Ethereum engineer Dominik Clemente’s account was permanently deleted by Telegram support after a hack, with no data recovery. Mumtaz argued that Telegram lacks default end‑to‑end encryption, falls short of Slack’s standards for team coordination, and provides meaningful support only to large corporate partners. “Independent builders facing hacks or phishing attacks are left alone with automated account deletion systems, often losing years of work,” he noted. Mumtaz’s critique, coming from a developer with deep ties to both Solana and Zcash, underscores a growing sentiment that Telegram — despite Pavel Durov’s blockchain ambitions — may be unsafe for real business and privacy‑focused projects.
At press time, Zcash traded at $541.75, reflecting the heightened attention around privacy coins following Hayes’ disclosure and the wider privacy narrative.
