Winklevoss Asset Services filed a Form S-1 with the SEC on 6 October for a spot Zcash ETF that would trade on Nasdaq under the ticker WINK, making it the third US spot Zcash ETF in the queue alongside Grayscale and Bitwise. A Reuters report on the filing confirmed the Nasdaq listing venue. The filing sets “an annual unified fee of 0.25% of the Trust’s ZEC Holdings,” which the sponsor may waive in whole or in part “at its sole discretion and from time to time.”
That number is the news. Grayscale’s Zcash ETF, listed on NYSE Arca as ZCSH, charges 2.5% a year accrued daily and paid in ZEC, and 21Shares priced Europe’s first Zcash ETP at the same 2.50%. The Winklevoss product would come in at one tenth of both.
The two live Zcash products both charge 2.50%. Source: Form S-1 filings, 21Shares · Chart: FinanceFeedsGemini Would Custody the Zcash ETF’s Own Coins
The structure keeps the work inside the family. Winklevoss Asset Services sponsors the trust, CSC Delaware Trust Company acts as trustee, and Gemini Trust Company is named as custodian, which puts the Winklevoss twins’ own exchange in charge of the ZEC backing a Winklevoss-sponsored Zcash ETF. Affiliate custody is permitted and disclosed, and it is the kind of arrangement that draws comment letters during a Zcash ETF review.
Grayscale’s filing carries its own concentration question. A nonbinding 200,000-ZEC contribution from DCG International, measured on a 30 June snapshot, would hand DCG roughly 34% of the enlarged fund, with majority control possible once affiliates are counted.
The Zcash ETF Filing Still Has Blanks Where the Index Should Be
Anyone reading this as an imminent launch should look at the document. The benchmark that would price the trust’s ZEC appears as an empty bracket, the pricing methodology is written as a bracketed “[60-minute time-weighted average price],” and the administrator and marketing agent are both unnamed. Those are placeholders that later amendments fill in, and none of them has been settled yet.
Seed interest is similarly soft. The Winklevoss Capital Fund has signaled nonbinding interest in buying up to $100m of shares, and Cypherpunk Technologies is named as the Zcash ecosystem partner. No launch date exists for the Zcash ETF, because an S-1 does not carry one.
Investor Takeaway
The Winklevoss Zcash ETF proposes a 0.25% annual fee against the 2.5% that both Grayscale’s ZCSH and the 21Shares ETP already charge.
What the Zcash ETF Filing Says About Shielded Transactions
A privacy coin in a US wrapper brings a risk no bitcoin fund carries, and the S-1 states it plainly. The filing warns that because “the Zcash Network utilizes shielded transactions, any trading platforms or businesses that facilitate transactions in ZEC may be at an increased risk of criminal or civil lawsuits or of having banking services cut off if there is a concern that these features interfere with the performance of anti-money laundering duties and economic sanctions checks.”
It also flags that the technology is still moving, noting that developers continue to modify those features “including through the introduction of the Ironwood shielded pool in July 2026, and future changes may heighten these risks.” That is not hypothetical. Kraken force-sold UAE customers out of their ZEC in September, and a mainnet decision on NU7 is due on 20 October, with shielded usage at multi-year highs.
Grayscale’s ZCSH Lost $93.56m in a Single Week
The incumbent is not growing into this fight. ZCSH shed $93.56m over a single week to 3 October, with daily redemptions between $26m and $30m on 30 September and 2 October, and its assets fell to roughly $751m from a September peak in the $915m to $979m range. Cumulative net inflows slipped from about $271m to $212.56m across the same stretch.
ZEC is up 720.91% over a year and down 8.10% over the past week. Source: TradingView · Chart: FinanceFeedsCoverage citing the $890m the fund held around the time of its 3-for-1 share split is quoting a September high rather than a current figure. A Zcash ETF arriving at 0.25% is therefore undercutting a rival whose balance is already falling.
ZEC traded at $1,342.93 on 6 October. Source: TradingViewZEC changed hands at $1,342.93 on Coinbase at 18:16 GMT+1, up 0.40% on the day, for a market value of $23.04bn against 16.9m coins in circulation of a 21m cap. The run explains the queue of issuers. Over a year the token is up 720.91%, and over the past week it is down 8.10%, a drawdown that liquidated $28.7m of longs in late September.
Investor Takeaway
The S-1 warns that platforms handling ZEC risk lawsuits or losing banking services over shielded transactions, a risk Kraken’s UAE liquidations already demonstrated.
