Balaji Srinivasan said BTC became “a reserve currency of Western institutions,” while ZEC was “the currency of Western individuals.”
- Zcash fell nearly 5% on Saturday, as on-chain analyst Specter said, “Threat actors are actively using ZEC to move stolen funds.”
- ZachXBT said “alleged DPRK attackers” had begun shielding about $3.8 million in ZEC stolen in a Bitget exploit.
- On-chain analyst Specter cited incidents like the CryptoBilis Ledger wallet hack and the Triple-A hack, which reportedly resulted in a $12 million loss.
Zcash (ZEC) fell nearly 5% on Saturday as an on-chain analyst said hackers were moving stolen funds through the privacy token. Those shielded transfers relied on the same privacy that Gemini (GEMI) co-founder Cameron Winklevoss defended, saying that “know your customer is becoming kill your customer.”
“Threat actors are actively using ZEC to move stolen funds,” on-chain analyst Specter wrote on Saturday. These exploits included the Bitget hack, where its security systems had flagged unauthorized transfers from some of its hot wallets. The second theft involved Ledger hardware wallets sold by CryptoBilis, a reseller in Southeast Asia, and the third was the Triple-A hack, a Singapore-based stablecoin payments firm. According to Specter, that loss stood at $12 million.
The on-chain analyst’s comments coincided with a steady decline in ZEC’s price. Over the past month, ZEC slipped more than 17%.
ZEC’s price was trading at $1,167 at the time of writing. On Stocktwits, retail sentiment around ZEC remained in the ‘extremely bearish’ zone, while chatter around it stayed at ‘low’ levels over the past day.
‘Kill Your Customer’
Zcash’s privacy features were also the focus of a panel at Token2049 in Singapore, where Gemini co-founder Cameron Winklevoss said that identity checks put users at risk.
“Know your customer is becoming kill your customer,” Winklevoss said during the panel. When a vendor holding customer data gets hacked, he said, criminals learn where people live and how much they hold. “They attack you, kidnap you,” he said. “It’s happening right now. All over Europe, France, in particular.”
Former Coinbase (COIN) CTO Balaji Srinivasan, who shared the stage, made a similar point. “No government should be able to force a collection of something they can’t secure,” he said. He said zero-knowledge proofs should replace document uploads, letting users prove they meet a service’s rules without handing over a passport scan.
Winklevoss framed the issue in constitutional terms. “Encryption is a peaceful, non-violent Second Amendment,” he said. “Privacy is a human right.”
Currency Of Western Individuals
The two investors said they saw Zcash as the private version of Bitcoin (BTC), not its rival. “Cash is centralized, private. Bitcoin, decentralized, public. Zcash, decentralized, private,” Winklevoss said.
Srinivasan said Bitcoin’s public ledger suits large holders. “I believe that Bitcoin becomes a reserve currency of Western institutions,” he said. “Zcash is the currency of Western individuals.”
According to Srinivasan, institutions “need to prove their solvency to many people, but a Western individual doesn’t need to do that.” Winklevoss raised Bitcoin’s pseudonymous creator as a test case. “Would Bitcoin have been launched if Satoshi had to reveal his identity? Maybe not,” he said.
Read also: Bitcoin On Track For First Back-To-Back Losing Octobers In Over A Decade As ‘Downtober’ Continues
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