Zcash continues to rise while Bitcoin falls – and this treasury company just bought more ZEC

Long-term privacy coin Zcash (ZEC) has continued its recent rise and is even up 31% over the past week Bitcoin, Ethereumand other major coins are deep in the red — and now a publicly traded treasury company says it has amassed even more of the surging cryptocurrency.

Cypherpunk Technologies (Nasdaq: CYPH) announced Wednesday that it has purchased an additional 29,869.29 ZEC (Zcash) for $18 million at an average price of $602.63 per coin.

Combined with the company’s initial purchase of 203,775.27 ZEC for $50 million, the company now owns 233,644.56 ZEC at an average price of $291.04, representing 1.43% of the total ZEC supply. Cypherpunk’s ZEC treasury is now valued at over $146 million.

Zcash recently traded hands at $626 per coin, up 125% in the past 30 days and a jump of more than 15x since early September. ZEC’s price has crossed the $700 mark several times so far this month, but has remained volatile, with significant swings up and down the charts.

Even with the recent rebound, ZEC remains far from its all-time high of $3,191 in its 2016 debut.

Bitcoin, on the other hand, has hit a more recent all-time high, peaking above $126,000 in early October. Since then, however, the stock has fallen sharply, hitting a new seven-month low of nearly $88,637 on Wednesday. Bitcoin is down more than 12% in the past week, while Zcash is up 31% over the same period.

Cypherpunk Technologies has unveiled its Zcash treasury earlier this month with the backing of Winklevoss Capital, the VC firm founded by Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, the co-founders of crypto exchange Gemini. The company recently appointed veteran investor Khing Oei to its board of directors and Will McEvoy of Winklevoss Capital as board member and Chief Investment Officer.

CYPH stock is up nearly 6% today to a recent price of $3.14, pushing its one-month gain to 469%.

Launched in 2016 with the help of famed whistleblower Edward Snowden, Zcash was derived from Bitcoin’s code base with an emphasis on privacy: transactions can be “shielded” via zero-knowledge proofs, making it difficult to trace coin movements.

What’s driving the recent surge? Analysts suggest this could be partly due to concerns about Bitcoin’s growing mainstream profile and interest from Wall Street institutions, pushing crypto natives towards a coin that isn’t as easily traceable on the blockchain.

“Bitcoin itself has always been completely transparent; ETFs haven’t made it less transparent, just more mediated,” said Galaxy Digital Research analyst Will Owens. wrote this month. “In contrast, Zcash’s proponents frame it as ‘encrypted Bitcoin,’ a return to cypherpunk principles that resonate with widespread surveillance of the chain.”