Grayscale's Zcash ETF (ZCSH) plans a 3-for-1 forward share split, according to a filing with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

At the close of trading on Sept. 28, shareholders will receive two additional shares for every share they hold, per the filing.

According to a Grayscale press release, the forward split is expected to decrease the price per share of the fund, with a proportionate increase in the number of shares outstanding. The release illustrated the mechanics with a hypothetical: an investor holding 10 shares valued at $300 each, for a total of $3,000 before the split, would own 30 shares valued at $100 each afterward, for the same $3,000 total. Forward splits of this kind leave the overall value of a holder's position unchanged, dividing it across more shares at a proportionately lower price each. Unlike reverse splits, which consolidate shares to lift a per-share price, forward splits multiply share counts and are the mechanism issuers typically turn to after a sharp run-up in unit price.

The move is intended to make the ETF more accessible to investors. The underlying token has gained roughly 2,800% over the past year, and the price per unit was considered too high, per the release. Accessibility carries practical weight for exchange-traded funds, since a high per-share price raises the minimum cost of a single-share order, and lowering it widens the pool of buyers able to transact in whole shares. Zcash, launched in 2016, is among the best-known privacy-focused cryptocurrencies, a category that has historically drawn heightened scrutiny from regulators and exchanges because shielded transfers can fall outside conventional compliance monitoring.

Shielded transactions conceal addresses and amounts

Cointelegraph reported on Thursday that Zcash (ZEC), a cryptocurrency that enables users to make shielded transactions that conceal addresses and transaction amounts using zero-knowledge proofs — cryptographic methods that let a verifier confirm a statement without seeing the data behind it — had gained about 20% over 24 hours after Paradigm co-founder Matt Huang disclosed that the crypto investment firm had made an unspecified purchase of ZEC.

Huang described Zcash as a "private complement to Bitcoin" and also backed its developer fund, arguing that long-term funding remains important as AI-driven cyber capabilities and quantum computing advance.

Zcash's ZEC token climbed as high as $1,521 early Friday, The Block reported, in what would be considered a new effective all-time high, before falling back slightly. The size of Paradigm's purchase was not disclosed, and the split takes effect at the close of trading on Sept. 28 — two concrete markers for readers tracking the fund and its underlying token in the days ahead.