Grayscale says it plans to direct $1 million to non-profits and projects that support the Zcash network.
The asset manager announced the commitment on Tuesday, 10 November. It has already awarded the first $400,000, in four grants of $100,000 each, to the Zcash Foundation, Pretty Good Policy for Zcash, Switzerland-based Shielded Labs and Project Tachyon, a scaling effort led by a Zcash co-founder.
Paid for by ETF fees
The money comes from the sponsor fees Grayscale earns on The Zcash ETF, which trades under the ticker ZCSH. Grayscale says it intends to reinvest all the fees it collects during up to the fund’s first year as an exchange-traded product, to support development, marketing and education around the network.
The commitment is voluntary, and Grayscale can change or end it at any time.
A national ad campaign
Grayscale has also launched an educational website called Zcash Invest and a national advertising campaign, “Zcash: The Next Era of Crypto,” which began with a wrap-around advert in The Wall Street Journal. The adverts will run in print, outdoors, online, on streaming services and on social media.
“Financial privacy is becoming essential as more economic activity moves onchain,” said Steve Vanourny, head of index at Grayscale.
ZEC falls
The announcement came as ZEC dropped. The token fell 11.3% over 24 hours on Tuesday to about $1,043, after briefly falling below $1,000, according to CoinGecko. It is down about 19% over the past 30 days and well below its October highs above $1,500, but still up about 75% on a year ago.
No specific cause for Tuesday’s fall had been reported at the time of writing.
The ETF
The Zcash ETF began trading on NYSE Arca in August, about three months after a critical flaw in Zcash’s privacy system sent ZEC down about 50%. A fix was released in July. Grayscale later split the fund’s shares to make them cheaper to buy.
Rival products are also coming. The Winklevoss twins are planning their own Zcash ETF, and Europe’s first Zcash exchange-traded product has already launched.
What happens next
Grayscale has $600,000 of its pledge still to award. Whether its marketing push brings new investors into the ETF will show up in the fund’s flows over the coming months.
