Bankless founder tags Zcash as "the $ETH of 2021," as privacy coin market cap rockets from $200M to $26B

Bankless co-founder David Hoffman has framed Zcash ($ZEC) as the leading destination for capital rotating out of Bitcoin ($BTC), arguing the privacy coin is repeating the role Ethereum ($ETH) played during the 2021 cycle. "ZEC of 2026 is ETH of 2021," Hoffman said in remarks reported by the outlet.

Hoffman pointed to Zcash's market capitalization rising from roughly $200 million to approximately $26 billion as evidence of sustained buying pressure, and said the surge reflects a familiar pattern in which a single altcoin absorbs a mass influx of capital from Bitcoin holders. He noted that while Bitcoin maximalists typically adhere to a "Bitcoin and only Bitcoin" stance, Bitcoin investors occasionally rotate into other cryptocurrencies, and when enough do so into the same asset the move becomes a broader capital shift.

Hoffman cited Ethereum's climb from a market capitalization low near $12 billion to a peak of $554 billion in 2021 as a comparable example of capital rotating from Bitcoin into an alternative asset. With Bitcoin's market capitalization standing at approximately $1.7 trillion, Hoffman argued that even a small fraction of Bitcoin holders moving into $ZEC can have an outsized impact on its price, and recommended evaluating Zcash relative to Bitcoin's market cap rather than focusing on dollar-denominated returns.

According to Hoffman, interest in $ZEC has been driven in part by renewed discussion of its privacy features and by concerns over the potential impact of quantum computing on Bitcoin. He said some Bitcoin investors are purchasing $ZEC directly for its technological attributes, while others are adding it to portfolios as a hedge against their Bitcoin exposure.

Hoffman also compared the trajectory of NEAR Protocol ($NEAR), describing it as occupying a similar position among smart contract platforms to the one $ZEC now holds among Bitcoin-adjacent assets. He added that the number of large investors who have bypassed $BTC, $ETH, and other major cryptocurrencies to buy only $ZEC based purely on conviction in Zcash's properties remains quite limited.