Winklevoss files for a spot Zcash ETF, proposes ticker WINK

Winklevoss Asset Services filed on October 6 to launch a spot Zcash exchange-traded fund, pitching the ticker WINK and a 0.25% fee. It is the third US bid for a fund tied to Zcash, a privacy coin up about 751% in a year.

Records on the SEC's EDGAR system show the preliminary Form S-1 carries an October 6, 2026 date. The Block and Decrypt both reported the filing. Winklevoss Asset Services is linked to Gemini, the exchange run by twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss.

What the WINK filing proposes

The fund would hold ZEC directly and charge one yearly fee of 0.25% of its holdings. Gemini Trust Company would act as custodian and keep the coins in cold storage, the document says. Gemini is an affiliate of the sponsor. It is not hidden. The filing states the tie plainly.

There is one more number worth flagging. Winklevoss Capital Fund has signaled it may buy up to $100 million of shares. That interest is nonbinding, so it reads as a show of intent, not a commitment.

A spot fund like this buys and holds the asset itself, rather than tracking it through futures. For readers new to the structure, our guide to what a Bitcoin ETF is walks through how creation and redemption work.

A crowded race to wrap Zcash in an ETF

Winklevoss is not first in line. Grayscale turned its Zcash product into a US spot ETF in August 2026, trading as ZCSH. The Block reported that fund drew about $233 million in its first month and reached roughly $890 million in net assets, enough to trigger a 3-for-1 share split in September.

Bitwise has also filed for a Zcash fund, which makes Winklevoss the third US issuer in the queue, according to The Block. In Europe, 21Shares has already listed a Zcash exchange-traded product, Decrypt reported. Fees are the main lever. At 0.25%, WINK sits at the low end.

Winklevoss is pitching a unified fee, meaning the 0.25% is meant to cover the trust's ordinary running costs rather than sit on top of them. For a buyer comparing funds, the yearly cost is the clearest difference between near-identical products that all hold the same coin.

Demand has tracked a sharp run in the coin. ZEC traded near $1,348 at the time of a CoinGecko snapshot on October 6, 2026, up about 751% over the prior year and ranked tenth by market value at roughly $22.9 billion. Like Bitcoin, Zcash caps its supply at 21 million coins.

The privacy-coin problem

Zcash lets users shield transaction details, which is its selling point and its headache. The same feature that attracts privacy-minded buyers worries regulators and some exchanges, a few of which have delisted privacy coins over compliance concerns. The filing warns that the cryptography behind Zcash privacy "is new and could ultimately fail, or could be used to facilitate illicit activities."

It also flags a technical scare from earlier in the year. In May 2026, a researcher at Shielded Labs found a soundness flaw in the zero-knowledge circuit behind one of Zcash's shielded pools, called Orchard, that could in theory have let someone mint counterfeit ZEC. Decrypt reported the coin fell about 50% before developers patched the network. No fakes were confirmed.

As of July 30, 2026, about 3.29 million ZEC still sat in the Orchard pool, the filing says. That pool is the one the flaw touched. Developers shipped a fix, and the prospectus presents the episode as resolved rather than open.

What to watch

The filing is a request, not an approval. The SEC has to review it before any listing, and the agency is barely open. A lapse in federal funding has frozen its reviews, and officials have said they will not act on pending applications until the government reopens, a backlog that already covers more than 90 crypto ETF filings.

That freeze matters for timing. Our report on the SEC funding lapse explains why the decision clocks are not running. Until the standoff ends, WINK and its rivals wait. Whether three Zcash funds can all find buyers is a separate question, and one the market has not answered.