Analyst Swan called Zcash "trash" and accused the team of orchestrating a pump.
Founder and CEO of Swan Bitcoin, Cory Klippsten, has sharply criticized the cryptocurrency Zcash and its marketing strategy. In his assessment, the current information campaign surrounding the project represents a "coordinated pump," and he characterized the asset itself as "garbage." Klippsten paid particular attention to the coin distribution structure: he claims that 99% of all ZEC volume is held on centralized exchanges, making it extremely vulnerable to manipulation.
The harsh statement came amid the ongoing decline in ZEC's price. According to CoinMarketCap data, the coin's rate has dropped by approximately 33% over the last 30 days. Meanwhile, the Zcash development team was previously forced to urgently discuss a network update after discovering a critical vulnerability in the Orchard privacy pool. This incident undermined part of the community's trust in the protocol's security.
Klippsten's criticism is not surprising, given his long-standing commitment to Bitcoin as the only decentralized asset. However, his thesis about ZEC's centralization deserves separate analysis. If the overwhelming majority of the supply is indeed concentrated on exchanges, this calls into question the very idea of private transactions promoted by the Zcash team. In that case, the actual use of the coin for anonymous payments would be minimal, and its price would become hostage to speculative flows.
Analyst's opinion: The problem with Zcash is deeper than it seems. Even if the protocol technically ensures privacy, an economic structure where the bulk of coins sit on exchanges makes the network vulnerable to regulatory pressure. Without real adoption as a medium of exchange, such projects risk remaining merely niche experiments.