Shielded privacy coin entering a gold-lit institutional exchange

Winklevoss-Backed Zcash ETF Files for Nasdaq Listing Under WINK

By Isaac • October 6, 2026 11:16 pm • Comments

The Winklevoss twins are making another run at a crypto exchange-traded product, this time with one of the market’s biggest privacy coins.

A newly filed registration statement proposes the Winklevoss Zcash ETF, a fund designed to hold ZEC directly and seek a Nasdaq listing under the ticker WINK. If it reaches the market, the product would give brokerage-account investors price exposure to Zcash without requiring them to buy or custody the coin themselves.

The October 6 Form S-1 filed with the SEC names Winklevoss Asset Services as sponsor and Gemini Trust Company as the proposed custodian. The filing says the trust’s objective would be to reflect the price of the ZEC it holds, minus operating expenses and other liabilities.

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This is still a proposal, not an approval notice. The preliminary prospectus says its information may change, and the shares cannot be sold until the registration becomes effective.

The proposed fund uses a direct-hold structure for a privacy coin.

The proposed trust would hold ZEC rather than use leverage or derivatives to mimic its price. The filing describes daily net asset value calculations tied to a pricing benchmark and says authorized participants would handle creations and redemptions in large baskets.

Cointelegraph reports that the proposed annual sponsor fee is 0.25% and that Winklevoss Capital affiliates have indicated interest in buying up to $100 million of shares. The filing makes clear that any such purchase is nonbinding.

The proposal would place WINK alongside Grayscale’s existing Zcash product rather than giving the asset its first U.S. fund wrapper. The fresh filing still matters because it adds another sponsor, another exchange venue and a direct institutional link to Gemini’s custody operation.

Cointelegraph also placed ZEC near $1,354 at the time of its report, up more than 735% over the prior year with a market value around $23 billion. That move had pushed Zcash to roughly tenth among cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, giving the application a much larger addressable market than the coin had a year earlier.

The application arrives as Zcash has pushed back into the market’s top tier. ZEC is built around zero-knowledge proofs and offers shielded transactions that can conceal transaction amounts and participant addresses.

That privacy capability distinguishes it from Bitcoin and most large smart-contract assets. It is also the feature regulators are likely to examine most closely.

The Winklevoss history makes this filing notable.

Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss were among the earliest major applicants for a spot Bitcoin ETF in the United States. Regulators rejected their original effort, yet it helped start a fight that eventually ended with spot Bitcoin products reaching the market years later.

The Zcash filing does not guarantee the same destination. The SEC still has to examine custody, pricing, market surveillance, investor protection and the unusual compliance questions that surround a privacy-focused network.

Even so, the application is another sign that crypto fund sponsors are moving beyond Bitcoin and Ether. Asset managers increasingly want regulated wrappers for a broader set of networks, while investors are showing that they will consider specialized exposure when a coin has a clear use case and sufficient liquidity.

The proposed WINK fund now enters that process with a recognizable sponsor, an established crypto custodian and a direct-hold structure. The next meaningful milestones will be SEC amendments, an effective registration statement and any Nasdaq listing action—not the filing alone.

For Zcash, though, the signal is already significant. A privacy coin once treated as too specialized for mainstream finance is now the subject of a new Nasdaq ETF application backed by two of the industry’s longest-running institutional advocates.

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