Cypherpunk Launches with Winklevoss Backing, $50M Zcash Push

Shares of Leap Therapeutics (Nasdaq: LPTX) surged greater than 170% in early buying and selling on Wednesday after the corporate introduced a shift to a crypto treasury technique.

The corporate announced its rebranding as Cypherpunk Applied sciences (Nasdaq: CYPH) and adoption of a digital asset treasury technique targeted on Zcash (ZEC), the native token of the Zcash protocol.

The biotech firm used $50 million from a $58.88 million non-public placement led by Winklevoss Capital to buy 203,775 Zcash (ZEC) at a median worth of $245.37 per token, marking a transfer away from biotechnology and into the crypto sector.

Winklevoss Capital is a enterprise capital agency based by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, who additionally co-founded the cryptocurrency alternate Gemini.

“As our lives have moved on-line, privateness’s grow to be a uncommon, vanishing commodity… That’s why we based Cypherpunk — an organization devoted to privateness and self-sovereignty,” Tyler Winklevoss, one of many founders of crypto exchange Gemini, wrote on X.

Launched in 2016 as a Bitcoin fork, Zcash (ZEC) is a privacy-focused blockchain that makes use of zero-knowledge proofs (zk-SNARKs) to confirm transactions with out revealing sender, receiver, or quantity.

Associated: Why Zcash and privacy tokens are back in the conversation

Cypherpunk’s new enterprise technique comes with two additions to its board of administrators. Khing Oei, the CEO of a European Bitcoin treasury firm, will function chairman of the board. Will McEvoy, principal at Winklevoss Capital, will function Cypherpunk’s chief funding officer.

The rise of Zcash

ZEC has been on a journey this yr. The token staged a sharp rebound, leaping from about $48 in early September to over $640 inside weeks and reclaiming a spot among the many prime 20 cryptocurrencies.

BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes just lately predicted ZEC’s worth might attain $1,000 in 2025. Nonetheless, latest technical indicators recommend a worth correction may very well be in retailer.

In line with market analysts, the token is now the most overbought on record, with its relative power index (RSI) reaching 94.24 this week. 

Traditionally, when ZEC’s relative power index (RSI) climbs above 70, the token typically extends its rally for weeks earlier than present process steep corrections which have ranged from roughly 45% to greater than 90%.

On Wednesdays, Hayes told Zcash holders to move their tokens off centralized exchanges and into self-custody, telling customers on X to “defend” their belongings for personal transactions. 

His feedback got here amid heavy volatility, with ZEC spiking to $723 over the weekend earlier than sliding 37% to round $450 by Wednesday.

Journal: Big Questions: Did a time-traveling AI invent Bitcoin?