Grayscale Research has made the case that financial privacy is entering a third wave of public attention — and that the market still prices it as a fringe feature across privacy-focused altcoins, leaving Zcash (ZEC) undervalued. According to the firm, ZEC's valuation represents roughly 0.6% of the digital asset currency sector, which it estimates at approximately $1.4 trillion.

The firm ties the anticipated shift to two forces: stablecoins and blockchain technology. Stablecoins — typically pegged to fiat currencies such as the U.S. dollar — have grown into one of the most actively used segments of the digital asset market in recent years.

Zcash, launched in October 2016, is a privacy-oriented cryptocurrency that uses zero-knowledge proofs known as zk-SNARKs to enable "shielded" transactions, in which the sender, recipient, and transfer amount are obscured on its blockchain. Versions of the same zero-knowledge cryptography have since found broader industry use, including in Ethereum scaling systems known as zk-rollups. The network shares Bitcoin's fixed maximum supply of 21 million coins, and ZEC serves as its native asset.

Within Grayscale's Crypto Sectors framework, ZEC is classified in the Currency sector, a grouping that also includes bitcoin (BTC) and other payments-oriented digital assets. Bitcoin remains the largest digital asset by market value, which gives the currency category considerable weight in the sector framework.

Privacy-oriented assets also operate under particular regulatory scrutiny: several jurisdictions have examined such tokens closely, and a number of major exchanges have restricted or delisted them for users in certain regions in recent years. That backdrop shapes how privacy-focused assets are accessed and traded, and it forms part of the environment in which Grayscale's sector analysts are making their case.

Grayscale Research is the research arm of Grayscale Investments, one of the largest digital asset management firms in the United States and the sponsor of the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC). Its analysts publish recurring sector-level commentary on digital assets. As stablecoin policy and the regulatory treatment of privacy features continue to evolve, that recurring research offers a reference point for how one of the industry's largest asset managers views the category over time.

This content was first published by COINOTAG on October 25, 2026: https://en.coinotag.com/grayscale-research-zcash-zec-mispriced-currency-sector