Gemini co-founder Tyler Winklevoss believes that the current mood surrounding Zcash (ZEC) is comparable to crypto sentiment in 2019.
This comes after the privacy-focused cryptocurrency became the talk of the town because of its blistering rally.
The 2019 comparison
Bitcoin entered 2019 in an unusually difficult position. The cryptocurrency had just gone through the brutal 2018 bear market following the speculative frenzy of 2017. Prices were depressed while retail enthusiasm had evaporated.
According to CoinGecko’s retrospective data, Bitcoin was worth roughly $3,693 on Jan. 1, 2019. It went on to rally to around $13,000 by late June before retracing some of that increase, eventually entering 2020 around $7,195.
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Despite the volatility, the people paying close attention to Bitcoin were discussing institutional infrastructure, custody, and so on. The same applies to the broader industry.
The suggestion appears to be that Zcash currently has a similar feeling of enthusiasm.
Why Zcash feels very different
Zcash is not a new cryptocurrency. The network launched in 2016.
Zcash uses zero-knowledge proofs to allow transactions to be validated in a private fashion.
For years, however, privacy coins occupied an awkward position in crypto.
The technology attracted strong ideological support from privacy advocates . However, some exchanges removed privacy-focused cryptocurrencies altogether due to regulatory scrutiny.
In 2026, Zcash experienced a major resurgence. Privacy has returned as an investment and technology narrative.
Zcash entered January around the $511 area before suffering a steep correction.
February brought another decline. ZEC fell approximately 27% during the month and briefly traded around $191.
May, however, became the first major breakout phase. ZEC surged more than 60%, reaching a monthly high above $680 before finishing around $565.
Zcash climbed roughly 85% during August, moving from approximately $457 to about $848
September then brought another major leg higher. CoinGecko data show ZEC trading above $1,000 by early September and reaching $1,335.51 on Sept. 16.
Gemini’s relationship with Zcash
Notably, Gemini became the first licensed exchange to offer Zcash trading and custody in 2018 after receiving approval from the New York State Department of Financial Services.
In August 2025, the exchange added support for Zcash Unified Addresses. Three months later, Gemini added support for Orchard, Zcash’s newer privacy protocol.
On Jan. 27, Gemini introduced a dedicated Zcash credit card.
On Sept. 29, Gemini announced that the infrastructure it uses to interact with the Zcash blockchain now runs on Zakura, a newer open-source full node written in Rust.
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