The X cryptocurrency community has been dominated by prominent figures advocating for the adoption of Zcash as privacy becomes increasingly threatened by governments and regulators.
According to StarkWare founder Eli Ben Sasson, a prominent mathematician who helped pioneer zero-knowledge proofs, the Winklevoss twins Naval Ravikant and Balaji Srinivasan support the adoption of Zcash (ZEC), whose success could prompt the Bitcoin ecosystem to reconsider reinvigorating OP_CAT and push for more privacy features.
Zcash is inspired by Bitcoin
In 2014, Ben-Sasson and his co-authors published Zerocash: Decentralized Anonymous Payments with Bitcoin.
This white paper was the culmination of six years of theoretical research. Since 2008, Ben-Sasson and his collaborators have been working on general-purpose zero-knowledge proof techniques. They didn’t have a use case, but they knew this technology was incredibly powerful.
Zcash has been trending on cryptocurrency Twitter for several months.
Not many people know the inside story behind the biggest cryptocurrency in the privacy space.
Chatting with @EliBenSasson about the history of @Zcash and the ZK technology behind it.
Join @rkbaggs live! https://t.co/ZRh96OzBD7
— Gareth Jenkinson (@gazza_jenks) November 10, 2025
“We knew that zero-knowledge proofs would solve two problems: scalability and privacy. Zero-knowledge proofs provide completeness. Basically, zero-knowledge proofs allow you to be confident that the right thing was done, even when you weren’t looking, even when you didn’t actually see all the details,” Ben Sasson said on Cointelegraph’s Chain Reaction live show on X.
Everything changed in 2013 when Ben-Sasson spoke about ZK at one of the early versions of the Bitcoin conference.
“When I got off the podium, some very influential Bitcoin OGs like Greg Maxwell and Mike Hahn came together and said, ‘Okay, where is that technology? When is that code going to be available?'” And I asked them, ‘Why do you need it? ”
Related: The truth behind the return of privacy-focused protocol Zcash in 2025
These early Bitcoin (BTC) developers and supporters have outlined several ways Bitcoin could benefit from new methodologies. Suddenly, ZK Proof found a deadly use case.
“So we worked very hard to publish something that shows how this technology can solve one of the most important problems in blockchain: the fact that when you make a Bitcoin transaction, everyone can see the amount and pretty much know who paid how much to whom.”
This transparency, although by design, means that there is an element of transparency that is unavoidable when using Bitcoin. ZK proofs provide a solution, but due to a decision made by Satoshi Nakamoto years ago, Bitcoin’s code cannot contain ZK proofs.
Why OP_CAT is the key to Bitcoin privacy
Ben Sasson said Bitcoin could still maintain its native privacy and infinite scalability if developers could agree to reinstate OP_CAT (the Satoshi-era OP_Code that Bitcoin’s creators disabled in 2010).
He also pointed out that the return of Zcash in 2025 could be a potential catalyst for Bitcoin’s privacy push.
There have been whispers that Bitcoin hodlers are exchanging BTC for Zcash 🤔🔏
why? Some Bitcoin users want more privacy when making transactions.
However, Bitcoin can maintain native privacy and scale. @EliBenSasson explains how ZK proofing and OP_CAT are key 🗝️👇
I caught it… pic.twitter.com/UTwb6U2hbg
— Gareth Jenkinson (@gazza_jenks) November 12, 2025
“We hope that as a result of this, the Bitcoin community will be more open to things like OP_CAT and OP_STARK to bring post-quantum security, privacy, scale, and programmability to this beautiful hard asset that is Bitcoin,” said Ben Sasson.
“The technology is ready. All it takes is a soft fork that adds the nine lines of code that Satoshi actually introduced. It’s called OP_CAT. It’s very, very easy. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. In this case, it’s a very easy way to give Bitcoin all the goodness of itself.”
Related: Leap Therapeutics soars 170% after Winklevoss-backed $50M acquisition of Zcash
Prominent Bitcoiners on social media have barely mentioned the Zcash story, and there is still no serious discussion about how to improve privacy when using Bitcoin for payments.
Cointelegraph also spoke exclusively with Gemini co-founders Cameron Winklevoss and Tyler Winklevoss at Bitcoin Amsterdam, where they explained their belief in Zcash’s potential to complement Bitcoin.
The twins made headlines in November when they announced the launch of Cipherpunk Technologies, a ZEC-based financial company, after acquiring and rebranding Nasdaq-listed Leap Therapeutics.
magazine: 2026 is the year of practical privacy in crypto: Canton, Zcash and more
