Why Cypherpunk’s CIO Calls Zcash the Most Mispriced Asset in Crypto

Will McAvoy’s case for Zcash as crypto’s most mispriced asset starts with privacy as a prerequisite for freedom of speech: when governments or corporations can access people’s thoughts, they can constrain what people are willing to say. He sees privacy declining, perhaps to its lowest level, and treats it as a scarce asset whose value could rise if demand grows. The timing of broader recognition is uncertain, he says, though a crisis could make privacy risks harder to ignore.

McAvoy describes AI and privacy as “two sides of the same coin.” People may want to give useful AI systems personal context, but need confidence that it will not be used against them. He warns that AI could make leaked personal data more exploitable, and predicts that camera-based AI interfaces could mean people are recorded by AI almost 24/7 within 12 months. Such developments could increase demand for privacy, although he does not claim to know when that shift will occur.

He characterizes Zcash as the tradable monetary unit of privacy and a private financial and transaction layer. Built from Bitcoin’s codebase, it uses proof-of-work mining and has a 21 million coin hard cap, with privacy added. McAvoy contrasts that with Bitcoin’s pseudonymity: Bitcoin transactions are public, and AI can combine disparate data sources to identify wallets. Public information, data leaks, and repeated visible spending may expose wallet owners and create personal security risks. He says Bitcoin cannot provide Zcash’s privacy guarantees and points to Zcash’s “ZK Approve” encryption technology.

McAvoy generally avoids price predictions, but estimates Zcash could reach about $2,000 if it attained roughly 2% of Bitcoin’s value. If it also attracted value from gold and offshore-wealth holders, he considers $3,000–$4,000 a reasonable medium-term range, with much higher value possible over the long run. These are conditional scenarios, not a forecast with a stated timetable. He sees potential uses in payments by individuals or AI agents, corporate transactions that companies do not want to reveal to competitors, and as a private store of value similar to Bitcoin. He argues that gold is difficult to transport and that international transfers can make central-bank purchases visible, leaving it less private than Zcash.

Cypherpunk invested $5 million in Zodl alongside Paradigm, Andreessen Horowitz, and Coinbase Ventures. McAvoy describes Zodl as a user-facing front end for Zcash’s privacy technology and currently its most popular wallet. Cypherpunk’s strategy, he says, is broader than accumulating Zcash: it is building a privacy-technology business group and aims to hold at least 5% of the Zcash network. At the time of the interview, it held just under 1.8%. The company is also exploring privacy technology for VPNs, private communications, and data storage and management, a strategy McAvoy calls “public privacy.”

Government action remains a risk for disruptive technologies, but McAvoy says that risk is not unique to Zcash or privacy technology. He is not very worried about regulation, citing a more constructive crypto regulatory environment over the prior couple of years and Bitcoin’s higher price after China banned it. He also argues that social media has normalized trading privacy for convenience through routine acceptance of terms, often without an immediate apparent cost. That trade-off may continue until exposure becomes more consequential, strengthening the case for private financial tools.