ZCSH still trades at a ~20-25% discount to NAV with a Form S-3 for spot ETF conversion sitting at the SEC since November 2025 — that's the actual trade here, not "gateway to ZEC exposure." Meanwhile Grayscale's "optional privacy" marketing is doing heavy lifting for regulators, but on-chain tells a different story: shielded transactions hit 59.3% ATH in February after Zodl wallet started routing users into the encrypted pool by default via Unified Addresses. Shielded supply went from 8% to ~30% of circulating ZEC in about a year. The "optional" framing keeps the SEC comfortable while the protocol steadily makes privacy the path of least resistance — same playbook HTTPS ran on the open web.

Top comment by @Benthic