Cypherpunk Technologies has acquired a Zcash mining fleet from Winklevoss Capital in a $33.33 million equity deal, giving it control of about 18% of the network's hashrate. The purchase builds on Cypherpunk's existing ZEC holdings as the company targets 5% ownership of the cryptocurrency's circulating supply.
Cypherpunk Technologies said Tuesday it acquired a Zcash mining fleet from Winklevoss Capital through an equity-based transaction valued at $33.33 million, a deal the company says makes it the operator of the world's largest Zcash mining operation. The fleet is already producing roughly 4.2 GSol/s at facilities across the United States, about 18% of Zcash's current hashrate. If Cypherpunk's figures are accurate, the deal hands one publicly traded company a significant share of Zcash's mining capacity.
Holdings target 5% of ZEC supply
The fleet adds to Cypherpunk's existing Zcash holdings, which stand at 323,394 ZEC, about 1.9% of the cryptocurrency's circulating supply. The company has set a target of eventually holding 5% of the ZEC supply.
Cypherpunk has framed Zcash mining as offering more attractive economics than Bitcoin mining or AI data center workloads under current market conditions. However, those economics depend heavily on ZEC's price, network hashrate, mining difficulty and operating costs.
ZEC's rally revives privacy coin interest
The push follows a sharp rise in ZEC's price during the second half of 2025, as renewed interest in privacy coin technology helped propel the asset higher. Despite a correction, Zcash is up more than 1,300% over the past 12 months, according to CoinMarketCap data cited by Cointelegraph.
Ironwood upgrade tackled a shielded-pool flaw
Zcash underwent its Ironwood upgrade on July 28, introducing a new shielded transaction protocol that replaces the Orchard pool and improves the network's security architecture. The upgrade followed the discovery of a flaw in Orchard that, under certain conditions, could have allowed an attacker to create counterfeit ZEC within the shielded pool without immediate detection.
There was no evidence the vulnerability had been exploited, but the risk underscored the security challenges tied to privacy-preserving transactions.
Source: Cointelegraph.com News
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