Grayscale Investments has launched the first exchange-traded fund that directly tracks Zcash (ZEC), expanding the crypto ETF market with a product tied to a privacy-focused digital asset. The fund began trading on NYSE Arca on Tuesday under the ticker ZCSH.
Zcash, first introduced in 2016, has long held a place in the crypto market because of its anonymous transaction features and privacy-preserving technology. Grayscale’s new ETF was converted directly from its existing Zcash Trust rather than launched as a separate structure from scratch.
ZCSH carries a 2.5% fee
A Grayscale spokesperson said the ETF has a 2.5% management fee. The related revenue will be directed back to the Zcash ecosystem to support network upgrades and technical development.
Grayscale links the launch to rising demand for financial privacy
Asked why the firm chose this moment to push a privacy-coin ETF, Grayscale index products head Steve Vanourny pointed to artificial intelligence. He said, 「As AI technology has completely changed how financial activity is monitored and tracked, we believe demand for financial privacy will only continue to grow.」
Vanourny added that ZCSH extends Grayscale’s history of bringing first-of-their-kind products to market while giving investors a compliant route to invest in privacy assets.
Fifth amended registration filing came last week
As part of the preparation for the Zcash ETF launch, Grayscale submitted its fifth amended registration statement to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission last week. That filing strengthened market expectations that the ETF was close to listing, and ZEC rose about 45% over the past few days on the news.
Another amended filing submitted earlier also indicated that a subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, Grayscale’s parent company, was considering buying about 200,000 ZEC through the trust.
Before the conversion took effect on Monday, assets under management in the original Zcash Trust had surpassed $313.5 million.