Zcash · ZEC
The privacy coin with shielded transactions
Mild miner issuance and a real base-layer must-hold — you need ZEC to transact, including private shielded sends — but privacy is a narrative VCs cap on regulatory and delisting risk.
How we judge every coin · tap▾
You want coins with the best chance to rise. Three forces decide it: inflation (fewer new coins = less selling pressure), narrative (a strong story pulls buyers in), business model (is the token actually needed, and used). Full method →
ZEC · a capped miner mint, with 12% never paid out.
ZEC is the native coin of Zcash, a proof-of-work privacy chain with optional shielded transactions — ~16.8M circulating against a fixed 21M cap, about 80% already mined.
Sell pressure. New coins come only from mining — 141.9K ZEC over the last 90 days. Each block pays out 1.375 ZEC, split between miners and a community grants committee.
Buy pressure. Zero. There is no buyback and no fee burn — fees go to miners. Nothing removes ZEC from the market.
Net. About 0.85% of supply goes to market over 90 days — mild and steady. A further 12% of every block is deferred into a locked fund and never issued, which is why the mint is smaller than the headline block reward suggests.
Mining is the only source of new ZEC. Over the last 90 days the chain produced 103,185 blocks, and each one paid out 1.375 ZEC — about 141.9K ZEC in total. Roughly 129.0K went to miners and 12.9K to the community grants committee; both reach the market. A further 12% of every block subsidy is set aside and never paid out at all, so it creates no new coins here.
No investor or team vesting. The original founders' allocation ran 2016 to 2020 and expired for good at the first halving in Nov 2020, so nothing remains on any schedule.
Nothing was released in the window. Two team-controlled pools are tracked: the deferred development fund lockbox, holding 129.0K ZEC and growing about 19.3K every 90 days, which has never paid anything out and cannot without a network upgrade; and the community grants treasury, holding about 79.9K ZEC. If either balance falls between refreshes, that outflow lands here.
No bankruptcy estate and no long-term locked seller distributing ZEC.
No buyback. Zcash has no mechanism that buys ZEC back off the market.
No fee burn. Transaction fees are paid to miners rather than destroyed, and the fee-burn proposal that has been discussed is not active.
No accumulation programme. The grants committee is funded straight from the block subsidy, so nothing buys ZEC on the open market.
Nothing already in circulation was locked up this window. The 12% deferred fund is not counted here — those coins are never issued in the first place, so they are absent supply rather than supply taken off the market.
My research. My portfolio. Free.
Deep research weekly. My real holdings monthly.