"Crypto Without Privacy Isn't Crypto" - The Zcash Bull Case | Tushar Jain & Mert Mumtaz

Bankless

Technology, Tech News, News

4.7 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 19 May 2026

⏱️ 62 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Zcash is having its first real narrative moment in years. David sits down with Multicoin Capital co-founder Tushar Jain and Mert Mumtaz to unpack why privacy may be crypto’s missing store-of-value primitive, why Zcash is being framed as “private Bitcoin,” how institutional adoption could normalize shielded money, what AI and onchain surveillance change about the privacy debate, and why quantum risk could become a real catalyst. --- 📣SPOTIFY PREMIUM RSS FEED | USE CODE: SPOTIFY24 https://bankless.cc/spotify-premium --- BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 🔮POLYMARKET | #1 PREDICTION MARKET https://bankless.cc/polymarket-podcast 🟦 COINBASE ONE | MEMBER MONTH https://bankless.cc/coinbase-one 🧭OKX | TRADE, EARN, PAY to OKX | 120M+ USERS WORLDWIDE https://app.okx.com/join/USBANKLESS 🦊 METAMASK | DOWNLOAD NOW https://go.metamask.io/BL-Pod-Download 🌐BRIX | EMERGING MARKET YIELD https://bankless.cc/brix 💰NEXO | Get your 30-day access to Wealth Club Premier https://bankless.cc/nexo --- TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Why Multicoin Got Interested in Zcash 5:22 Mert’s Path from Solana to Zcash 9:57 Why Zcash, Why Now? 17:01 The Institutional Path for Private Money 22:03 Zcash as a Private Store of Value 25:27 Fungibility, Tainted Coins, and Financial History 27:26 The Bear Case: Does Anyone Really Care About Privacy? 34:43 Onchain Surveillance and Government Power 39:13 Zcash Tokenomics and the Forgotten Coin Thesis 44:58 The Last PVE in Crypto 50:17 Zcash and the Quantum Threat 59:14 Shielded Pool Growth and Upcoming Catalysts --- RESOURCES Tushar Jain https://x.com/tushar_jain Mert Mumtaz https://x.com/mert --- Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures

Transcript

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0:00.0	Bankless Nation, we've got a pretty unique episode today. We are joined with Tushar Jane. He is the co-founder of multi-coin capital. Tushar, welcome to the show.
0:09.4	Hey, David. Thanks for having me. We're also joined with Mert Mumttaz. Mertz also for a time on the podcast. Welcome to the show. Thanks for having me, boss.
0:16.9	Interesting podcast, interesting group of people we have.
0:19.5	This is, I think, going to be pretty exciting.
0:21.9	I got peaked by Zcash, and I kind of went down interesting podcast, interesting group of people we have. This is, I think, going to be pretty
0:20.9	exciting. I got peaked by Zcash, and I kind of went down the rabbit hole, and I realized that
0:25.8	there's just a lot more substance there. Mert, you have been talking a lot about Zcash for
0:30.9	over a half of a year now, maybe even longer. Tushar, Multicoin just publicly announced that
0:36.4	you guys made a big, seemingly sizable investment into Zcash.
0:40.9	Tushar, maybe we can start here.
0:42.1	What got you over the hurdle?
0:43.9	What was the moment that was like, uh, maybe we should really consider this and come into Zcash in size?
0:49.5	What did it for you?
0:50.4	There were a combination of factors for us.
0:53.8	First, I want to acknowledge that, you know,
0:57.1	Mert was earlier to this than I was and has been talking about it for much longer. And I was
1:03.6	watching that and I was watching the entire narrative around Zcash last year really start to build up.
1:09.7	And this is an asset that, you know, I've seen since it
1:12.8	started and paid attention to. And mostly it was just left for dead. People weren't really
1:18.8	paying attention to it. And so it kind of languished out there. And then I saw that there was this
1:26.6	huge push for it.
1:29.1	But when I see something like that, I always pause and wonder,
	...

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