BlockBeats News, May 16th. According to WSJ, as Bitcoin gradually moves towards mainstream adoption and loses some of its early "privacy features," a group of early cryptocurrency investors are rekindling their interest in the privacy coin Zcash, leading to a significant increase in market attention towards this asset.

The report points out that several early Bitcoin supporters, including Gemini co-founders the Winklevoss brothers, are increasing their allocation to Zcash, believing that its "shielded transaction information" mechanism is closer to Bitcoin's early ideal state. At the same time, Grayscale Investments is reportedly pushing to convert its Zcash Trust into an ETF product to enhance accessibility for both institutions and retail investors.

Grayscale founder Barry Silbert has described Zcash as the "2013 Bitcoin," emphasizing that it has reignited the early crypto market's imagination regarding privacy and decentralization.

In terms of market performance, Zcash has shown strong performance recently, with a roughly 50% increase in the past month and a more than 1000% gain in the past year, significantly outperforming Bitcoin. However, the report also notes that its market cap of around $8.9 billion is still much smaller than Bitcoin's, categorizing it as a high-volatility small-cap asset.

Analysts believe that the core driver behind this recent price surge is the "privacy narrative comeback." Against the backdrop of increasing global regulation and improved on-chain transparency, the market is reevaluating the importance of financial privacy while also facing regulatory concerns regarding money laundering and illicit use cases.