ZEC’s latest surge has put the Zcash ecosystem back in the spotlight, and NFTs are one of the clearest places where that renewed attention is showing up.
In a PANews article by Nancy, republished by MarsBit, ZEC was described as having climbed from a low of about $200 earlier this year to nearly $1,500. As the token price kept rising, capital and user attention also started flowing back into Zcash, lifting a group of NFT projects that are either already live or preparing to launch.
zkSNARKs
zkSNARKs is a private identity collectibles project with a total supply of 10,000. Of that amount, 8,000 were offered through a public blind auction, 1,000 were allocated to early Snarklist participants, and another 1,000 were placed in a treasury for community grants, contributors, artists, and the team.
The project takes its name from zk-SNARKs, the cryptographic system behind Zcash. The technology lets users prove that information or a transaction meets certain conditions without revealing the underlying data. Zcash has already used it for shielded transactions and has also advanced zero-knowledge proof development through work such as Halo 2.
What sets the collection apart, according to the project description, is that identity and ownership are private by default. Outside users cannot directly inspect on-chain data to see who holds a given identity. The team said those identities may later be used for community access, reputation systems, and other privacy-focused use cases, though the exact functions are still under development.
The auction used a uniform clearing price. It drew 16,971 bids, cleared at 1.5 ZEC, or about $2,190, and generated total sales of about 25,305 ZEC, roughly $36.94 million. Unsuccessful bidders received full refunds.
The project has also faced criticism. Bitcoin Ordinals developer Leonidas publicly accused the zkSNARKs team of being serial builders in the Ordinals sector whose past projects were scams.
Zec Bit
Zec Bit is a native Zcash NFT project that also offers an NFT marketplace and issuance platform called Marketplace, with support for trading, offers, and reservations. Its core idea is not simply to launch another profile-picture collection. Instead, it uses Zcash Shielded Assets, or ZSA, to test an NFT trading model where the asset is visible but ownership stays private by default.
On most public blockchains, NFT wallet holdings, transaction histories, and links between wallets are open to inspection. Zec Bit is trying to hide that layer. Collection data, supply, and issuance records remain verifiable on-chain, but who owns an item, how much they hold, and what their trading history looks like are private unless the user chooses to reveal them.
The project’s first collection, ZecBit Genesis — Shielded, consists of 3,333 pixel-style generative art NFTs. Free minting opened on Sept. 3. The collection has fully minted out and moved into secondary trading, with a floor price of about 0.36 ZEC at the time cited in the source article. Holders of Genesis NFTs can also accumulate points for priority access to future platform projects.
Zec Bit currently runs mainly on the ZSA testnet. The team said the assets will move into users’ own shielded wallets only after ZSA is activated on the Zcash mainnet, and that timing is not controlled by the Zec Bit team.
ZADDR
ZADDR is a privacy experiment built on Zcash around a simple idea: readable identities with private payments by default. A user’s name can be public, while payment amounts, senders, and recipients remain shielded.
On the identity and collectibles side, ZADDR has introduced a hand-drawn pixel avatar NFT collection with a supply of 2,800, stored in Zcash’s Orchard shielded pool. The project said its introductory post for the series has already passed 1.5 million views. It has not announced an official mint date or price, but whitelist applications are open. The team said it has already received thousands of applications. Applicants must log in with an X account, complete the required tasks, submit a Zcash address, and then wait for manual review.
ZADDR is also trying to build a more usable identity layer for Zcash. Users can bind a unique name between 3 and 20 characters long instead of relying on a 178-character Zcash address. A payer can enter the name, have the system resolve the linked address, and complete the payment. Users can also point that name to a ZADDR account, a hardware wallet, or an exchange address.
For security, ZADDR says keys are generated and managed locally, with private keys never uploaded to a server. Zcash transaction construction, signing, and zero-knowledge proof generation all happen in the user’s browser, while the server receives only the fully signed transaction.
On cross-chain transfers, ZADDR has launched Crosspay using NEAR Intents. It currently supports Bitcoin, Ethereum, Base, Solana, and Tron, with room for more routes. Users can swap BTC, ETH, USDC, and other assets into ZEC, and can also move shielded ZEC out to other chains. Outbound transfers carry a 1% fee, while transfers into Zcash are free.
The project also introduced a reputation system called ZAD. Users earn ZAD through actual product activity such as sending, receiving, trading, bridging, and claiming a name. The points cannot be bought, sold, or transferred, making them closer to an on-chain record of product usage.
BITFOOTS
BITFOOTS is an NFT series built around a Bigfoot theme. According to the project, it is not a quickly generated collection. Each piece is a standalone 1/1 work created through planning and manual production. The team said it has spent more than 1,000 hours on the art, the base Bigfoot character, the worldbuilding, and the broader visual direction.
The project ties Bigfoot’s mystery-driven narrative to Zcash privacy. It describes the works as hidden creatures in an on-chain forest. The collectibles can exist on-chain, but holders do not need to expose a full wallet profile in the way they often would with standard NFTs. In the project’s framing, users discover a Bitfoot on-chain rather than simply buying a profile picture.
BITFOOTS was originally meant to launch through Bitcoin Ordinals. The team said it had already completed inscription of the full series on Bitcoin and had worked directly with the Magic Eden team on the process, but the launch was paused after market conditions changed. The project has now restarted on Zcash and says it wants to use privacy features to redefine how the collection is issued.
The current mint price is about $5, paid in ZEC. The team said the fee mainly covers launchpad and network costs. Access is handled through an application-based whitelist. Users must apply first, and approved users can also invite friends.
BITFOOTS also includes a dual-chain structure across Zcash and Bitcoin Ordinals. After minting on Zcash, users who pass review and submit a corresponding Bitcoin Ordinals address can receive the matching Bitcoin version for free. Some pieces also carry Ordinals-only colors or traits.
Zec Punks
Zec Punks is described as the first Punks-style NFT series in the Zcash ecosystem. It has a supply of 1,555 pixel punks. Each piece is built on a 24×24 grid with hand-drawn trait combinations, giving the collection a look similar to CryptoPunks. The team said there was no hidden reserve and there will be no second edition.
The mint was completed on Sept. 15 at a price of 0.015 ZEC. Participants had to use a Zcash shielded address beginning with u1, while transparent addresses were not eligible. The collection has sold out. The official account has also started teasing follow-up plans, though no details have been released.
ZecCat
ZecCat is a pixel cat NFT project being developed on the Zcash mainnet, with plans to issue 3,333 unique pixel cats. It uses ZRC-721 JSON inscriptions. The NFT exists as an inscription and its associated on-chain carrier, while ownership follows the project’s published application-layer rules and moves with the UTXO that carries the inscription. Minting and trading have not opened yet, and the mint date and price remain undisclosed.
The whitelist is already open. Users do not need to connect a wallet or pay a fee. They only need to submit an X username and a Zcash mainnet transparent address, or t1 address. Each X account and each t1 address can be used only once. The whitelist will be selected through a mix of random GTD and FCFS methods, and the team said original content contributors who meet the criteria can receive extra weighting.
For NFT safety, ZecCat has designed a separate NFT Vault. Under the system design published by the team, a user wallet generates both a Payment Address for everyday transfers and an NFT Vault Address dedicated to storing NFT carriers. The goal is to reduce the risk that an NFT carrier is accidentally used as a payment input during a normal transfer. The team also plans to have minting, transfers, listings, and purchases signed locally, with the wallet identifying and protecting NFT carriers.
ZecCat also plans to build its own marketplace with collection browsing, portfolio views, listings, purchase requests, and item offers, along with fee discounts and other utility tied to NFT ownership.
ZecFrogs
ZecFrogs is a pixel frog NFT project on Zcash with a planned supply of 6,969 Pixel Frogs. The team describes it as one of the first frog NFT series on ZEC and says it wants to use the collection as an entry point for a broader Zcash-centered Pond ecosystem.
A free mint is set to open soon. It will support only u1 shielded addresses in the Noir wallet. Users need to keep at least 0.007 ZEC in the wallet to cover gas and related protocol fees. Users who are not yet on the Froglist can still apply through the official website.
Alongside the NFT collection, the team is also building ZecPad, an infrastructure product positioned as a launchpad and marketplace for the Zcash ecosystem, with NFT issuance and secondary trading among its intended functions.
Zecutives
Zecutives is the first native NFT series from privacy NFT marketplace ZEC MARKET. The collection will have 1,111 pixel executive avatars and is preparing for a free mint. According to the project, holders will be eligible to share in part of the revenue generated by future launches on the platform.
Like several other Zcash-native projects, Zecutives stresses that floor prices are public while holder identities remain private by default. The NFTs and related assets are stored in a Zcash Shielded Vault, which means outside users cannot directly inspect who owns them.
The mint does not use ZEC directly. Instead, users must burn the token $EXZEC on ZEC MARKET to mint a Zecutive. The token is already listed on Stonkfun in a trading pair with ZEC and has a total supply of 1 billion. The starting mint price is about 80,000 $EXZEC. After every 25 NFTs minted, the price rises by 3%. The collection is capped at 1,111 items, and each vault can hold up to three.
On revenue sharing, the project said future series minted on ZEC MARKET will carry a 10% platform fee, and 2% of that fee will be distributed to Zecutives holders on a weighted basis according to the number of NFTs held. Earlier collections that have already migrated to the platform, including Genesis and Punks, are excluded from that mechanism. Of the burned $EXZEC, half is destroyed and half goes to the project treasury.
Privacy, identity, and infrastructure are becoming central themes
Across the eight projects, the common thread is not just collectible art. Teams are using NFTs to test shielded ownership, private identity, readable names, cross-chain transfers, dedicated vault structures, launchpads, and marketplace models inside the Zcash ecosystem.
Some collections have already sold out or posted large auction numbers. Others are still in whitelist, testnet, or pre-launch stages. What is clear from the projects covered in the source article is that the current Zcash NFT wave is being shaped as much by privacy tooling and product design as by the collections themselves.