What’s behind Zcash’s sudden price spike? Ran Neuner explains

The privacy coin has seen a significant rally, and Ran Neuner of Crypto Banter says he has a pretty good idea about who’s behind it.

Long overlooked, Zcash has exploded back into the spotlight with a price rally that caught many off guard. In the span of just one month, the token more than tripled in price from $227.79 to a multi-year high of $736.51.

The rally coincided with several prominent crypto personalities, including Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, and Arthur Hayes, started sharing bullish predictions about the token. Still, the sudden rally made many investors skeptical, questioning if there’s a coordinated push to pump the token.

Neuner, a prominent crypto media personality and the face behind Crypto Banter, believes he knows what’s behind this push. Crypto.news spoke to him at the Crypto Content Creator Campus in Lisbon, after he mentioned Zcash (ZEC) in his speech.

Crypto.news: During your talk at the CCCC in Lisbon, you said something that caught my attention. The Zcash rally, and how it’s being fueled by influencers.

Ran Neuner: It’s pretty obvious what’s going on. First of all, when you have collective influence and people use that influence together, it becomes incredibly powerful. Influence, by definition, is the ability to change how people act or transact. When a group of influential people collectively pushes the same message at the same time, that’s a very potent force.

What’s happening with Zcash is clearly very coordinated. A group of people came together and decided they wanted to support a new mission, a mission around privacy. These people connected around the Zcash protocol.

To be clear, Zcash is, from a tech standpoint, one of the best, smartest, and most sound privacy protocols in the world — and importantly, it’s a compliant privacy protocol. It’s been flying under the radar for a long time, but this group recognized that the time for privacy is now. They coordinated to bring the issue to the forefront, and the results are clear in the price action.

People might say this is just a pump-and-dump scheme. I don’t believe that. I see it as a coordinated push to spotlight a message that needs to be heard. And the price action supports that — nobody’s dumping. I believe these people genuinely see Zcash as the next Bitcoin (BTC).

I was around in 2014 and 2015, and I remember the brainpower and energy that formed around Bitcoin then. What I’m seeing now around Zcash feels very similar. Many of the same people, even.

CN: Around which projects were they organizing before?

Neuner: Bitcoin. Back in 2013, 2014, Bitcoin was still young and unaccepted by governments. These people weren’t just building and developing the protocol; they were also working to get it accepted, to get the message out.

What’s happening now with Zcash mirrors that energy and organization.

CN: But after that first big surge, Bitcoin went down a lot. Could the same happen here?

Neuner: Of course. Any asset that pumps thousands of percent is going to correct. I wouldn’t be surprised if Zcash also has a correction. Ultimately, if you want the return, you need to weigh the risk.

CN: From a retail investor perspective, the big question is — is this a good time to buy?

Neuner: That depends on how long you’re willing to hold and how strong your conviction is that we need private money — and that private money will remain legal.

If you believe in that, like I do, then it’s still cheap. When I bought my first Bitcoin at $500 or $600, I thought $800 was too expensive. Now, looking back, I wonder why I didn’t buy more.

It’s the same story here. If Zcash works as a protocol, then $600 or $700 is nothing.

CN: When you say it’s obvious what’s happening, are you basing that on what you see on social media? Do you have insider info?

Neuner: Let’s just say I have multiple sources who’ve told me the same story. Was I at the house where this was going on? No. Was I at the villa? No. But do I know people who were there? Yes.

CN: I spoke with Nuseir from Nas Daily today. He said that Zohran Mamdani’s election victory in New York is a strong signal for privacy tokens like Zcash. He says that when the government is going after billionaires, they will want to hide their money. What’s your take?

Neuner: He’s absolutely right. It’s not just that — in the EU, any transfer over $10,000 is monitored. So, yes, privacy is becoming increasingly relevant.

The fight for decentralized money was huge. The fight for decentralized private money is going to be even bigger — and with that comes big volatility. We have to be ready for it.

CN: You mentioned two key questions: First, will decentralized money work, and will it be needed? And second, will it be legal? How do you see the space between something being important — like privacy — and governments being uncomfortable with it?

Neuner: When it comes to private money, I think governments are going to fight it hard. They have valid concerns. First, they lose control. Second, it could be used for illicit activity — terrorism, drug money, that sort of thing.

But Zcash is different. Zcash offers compliant privacy. Not every transaction is shielded, and if you need to prove the source of a transaction, you can. It uses zero-knowledge proofs. So if a user has to prove to the government that they haven’t done anything illegal, they can. That’s what makes Zcash fundamentally different from something like Monero (XRM).

CN: So the ability to reveal the truth is in the user’s hands?

Neuner: Exactly. With Zcash, the user holds the ability to prove legitimacy if needed. Monero, on the other hand, mixes transactions in a way where you just can’t tell what’s what. Zcash generates a proof of the truth without exposing the full details. That’s a big deal.

CN: Do you think Zcash will challenge Bitcoin’s position?

Neuner: I think they serve different roles. Think about how exchanges operate with proof of reserves. You want to know the exchange is solvent — that it actually has the assets — but you don’t need to see the details of every customer’s transactions.

That’s how I see the financial system evolving. Bitcoin will be used as the proof of solvency, and Zcash — or a protocol like it — will be used for the private transactions. Let’s assume there are only two protocols: Bitcoin and Zcash. Entities will hold their reserves in Bitcoin transparently. But for transactions, when privacy and sovereignty matter, they’ll use Zcash. Then they’ll settle back into Bitcoin to prove their reserves.

CN: You mentioned influencers earlier. There’s a lot of skepticism toward influencers due to past pump-and-dump schemes. People often demand that governments step in. What’s your view?

Neuner: I’ll probably get ridiculed for this, but I do believe we need laws. Clear laws. Right now, it’s the Wild West, and that makes it hard for people to protect themselves.

Once the laws are in place — things like disclosure requirements — then the responsibility falls to the users. But until then, it’s too unregulated.

CN: What would a law around influencer-based coins look like?

Neuner: At the very least: disclosure. If you’re being paid to promote something, you need to say so. If you’re going to talk about a coin and then sell it, that needs to be known upfront. There’s nothing wrong with promoting something and dumping it later — as long as you’re upfront about it. That way, the user knows the rules and can decide whether to participate.

CN: But in the stock market, doing that could get you in serious trouble.

Neuner: Exactly. That’s why I say: we need laws in crypto too. It’s not a popular opinion, but it’s necessary. And as the system matures, I think more people will agree.