Winklevoss Files for Spot Zcash (ZEC) ETF WINK With $100 Million Backing Pledge

S-1 Filed for Winklevoss Zcash ETF

Winklevoss Asset Services, the fund sponsor run by chief executive Cameron Winklevoss, filed a Form S-1 registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday for an exchange-traded fund offering spot trading exposure to Zcash (ZEC), the veteran privacy coin. The Zcash price sits near $1,359 as of this writing, up roughly 2.4% over the past 24 hours, so the filing lands while the asset holds within reach of its heaviest overhead shelf. The proposed Winklevoss Zcash ETF would hold ZEC directly rather than through futures or other derivatives and plans to list on Nasdaq under the ticker WINK. Per the S-1 registration statement, the trust would pay its sponsor an annual fee of 0.25%, accrued daily in ZEC, a sharp undercut of legacy crypto fund pricing. The fund would run a cash creations and redemptions model: authorized participants deliver dollars, the fund buys ZEC on the open market, and no physical tokens change hands. Winklevoss Capital Fund has signaled interest, through affiliates, in buying as much as $100 million of WINK shares, though the filing cautions that such indications are not binding purchase commitments. Integration across the Zcash ecosystem runs deep: Gemini Trust Company, described in the filing as an affiliate of the sponsor, would keep the fund's coins in segregated cold storage addresses, and the exchange has provided ZEC custody and trading since 2018. The SEC closed its review of Zcash-related matters in January 2026 without enforcement action, a decision that cleared a path for privacy-coin funds to register. The filing also lands weeks after Zcash's NU7 upgrade cut testnet block times from 75 seconds to 25 seconds, with a mainnet activation slated for Nov. 5.

A Race With Grayscale's ZCSH

WINK would become the second U.S. fund delivering direct ZEC exposure. Grayscale's Zcash ETF (ZCSH) began trading on NYSE Arca on Aug. 25 as the country's first spot ZEC fund, and its 2.5% management fee runs ten times the Winklevoss rate. Grayscale said the fund held more than $500 million by Sept. 8, about $100 million of which came from a subsidiary of its parent, Digital Currency Group. Flows have not been one-way since: the fund shed $93.6 million in its first weekly outflow after listing, a redemption stretch our desk tracked as it unfolded. The Winklevoss filing also names Cypherpunk Technologies, a Nasdaq-listed company that holds ZEC in its treasury, as the trust's Zcash Ecosystem Partner, a role covering coinholder polling and voting and advice on technical changes to the network. Winklevoss Capital, the investment firm Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss founded in 2012, led a $58.88 million private placement in Leap Therapeutics last October, and the biotech later renamed itself Cypherpunk. The path to approval is not assured. Among its risk factors, the S-1 details the Orchard bug a Shielded Labs researcher identified in late May, a flaw that could have allowed counterfeit ZEC to be minted inside the shielded pool. An emergency upgrade patched it in early June, and developers report no evidence of exploitation, yet the filing warns there is no cryptographic way to prove the pool stayed clean before the fix. The SEC disapproved the Bats BZX proposal to list the Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust in March 2017, a precedent the sponsors know well. Several details remain blank in the preliminary prospectus, including the pricing benchmark, the administrator and the seed investor. Advocates have pressed the case in parallel: the ecosystem's lobby group registered under the federal Lobbying Disclosure Act, backed by a $750,000 grant.

$1,387 Resistance Rated 83/100

COINOTAG's proprietary 42-indicator composite S/R scoring engine rates the $1,387 resistance at 83/100, with EMA 20 and the R1 pivot carrying most of the weight; a daily close above it opens the $1,555.83 shelf, scored 63/100 from the Gann projection and weekly R1. Support sits at $1,164.69 (76/100 on EMA 50 and the 0.382 Fibonacci), and a break below it would invalidate the constructive read and drag price toward liquidation zones. Momentum is mixed: our RSI reads 51.79 while the MACD stays bearish inside a broader uptrend. Positioning is calm: the funding rate runs at 0.0011% on perpetuals, open interest sits at $967.48 million, and the Fear & Greed Index prints 73 (Greed). For a fuller read, see our Zcash technical analysis. Within the 24-hour window this piece opened on, ZEC holds near $1,359, up 2.4%.