Winklevoss Twins-Backed Cypherpunk Says Zcash Mining Is 'Nowhere Close' To Bitcoin, AI — Sees $10K Potential

Zcash (ZEC) edged lower on Monday, while an executive at Winklevoss-backed Cypherpunk Technologies (CYPH) said mining the privacy token was far more profitable than mining Bitcoin (BTC) or hosting AI.Zcash mining earned about $1,000 per megawatt hour, Cypherpunk Chief Investment Officer (CIO) Will McEvoy said on the Bankless podcast. On the other hand, Bitcoin miners have been shifting power to AI customers, pushing investors to .That shift lifted many Bitcoin miners from about $130 per megawatt hour to around $240, McEvoy said. He called it "a good step up," but said paid roughly four times as much. Profit per megawatt hour showed how much a miner earned from each unit of electricity, which let it compare one business against another.ZEC's price was down over 1% during the past 24 hours, after giving back its earlier gains of 4% . On Stocktwits, retail sentiment around ZEC remained in the ‘extremely bearish’ zone, while chatter stayed at 'low ‘levels over the past day.Could Zcash Reach $10,000? Cypherpunk Sees Long-Term PotentialMcEvoy said Cypherpunk shouldn't be valued like a typical crypto treasury company. With the warrants included, the company had an enterprise value of about $1 billion, roughly split between its $500 million in ZEC and its mining business, he said.McEvoy said the company hasn't set price targets. Still, he said Zcash reaching 10% of Bitcoin's value "seems like fairly reasonable" given its technology and privacy features. That would mean "something like a $10,000 Zcash price," he said.Why Zcash Mining Hardware Is Hard to ScaleMcEvoy said the profit stayed high because only a few machines could mine Zcash. Bitmain was the only company that made them, and it likely produced only a few thousand a month. He said a new order would take around 7 to 8 months to arrive, and "probably longer than that."McEvoy added that Bitmain had little reason to make more. Zcash was a small business for the company next to its Bitcoin machines. Any newcomer would have to design its own chips and compete with AI companies for factory space at chip makers like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (TSMC).Cypherpunk's Share Of The NetworkCypherpunk controls about 18% of Zcash computing power, or hash rate, and calls its fleet the largest Zcash mining operation in the world. McEvoy said the company planned to keep that share at 18% to 20%.The company held around 323 thousand ZEC as of August, standing at roughly 1.92% of the 21 million token supply, according to a filing.Cypherpunk aims to own 5% of the ZEC supply, similar to the target that has driven Tom Lee's Bitmine Immersion (BMNR) with Ethereum (ETH), popularly known as the “Alchemy of 5%.”