ZEC has 5.11M coins in shielded pools, about 30.6% of circulating supply on zecmetrics, so the censorship-resistance leg is no longer just cypherpunk cosplay. The market still prices SOV through exit liquidity and collateral acceptability: BTC owns that, ETH can route it through staking/DeFi, and ZEC has to prove shielded ownership can survive exchange listings, custody, and borrow markets without leaking the asset graph. ETH's durability case also cuts both ways; the DAO fork and Merge prove the chain can survive major surgery, but they also make social consensus part of the monetary-policy stack.

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