Winklevoss applied for the Zcash ETF at one-tenth of Graham's rate

Winklevoss Asset Services submits Zcash Spot ETF registration application with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

On October 6, 2026, Winklevoss Asset Services filed Form S-1 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regarding Zcash Spot Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs). The fund is planned to be listed on the NASDAQ Stock Exchange under the symbol WINK and an annual management fee rate of 0.25%. This rate is only one-tenth of the current rate of the only Zcash ETF in the United States. However, the fund is also closed for its German market portfolio. Therefore, for European investors holding ZEC (Zcash), the really decisive date does not appear in this document, but stems from the EU's anti-money laundering regulations.

Form S-1 is a registration application for a U.S. issuer to submit a new security to regulators seeking approval. This is only an application, not a final license: the prospectus clearly states that information may change and no shares may be sold until the registration takes effect.

Applicant and Basic Information

The applicant is Winklevoss Asset Services, LLC, acting as a promoter. The issuer itself is a Delaware statutory trust that appears in the prospectus as a "Winklevoss Zcash ETF." The document contains SEC accession number 0001104659-26-113940 and is filed in the registry under the identifier 0002158471, with a business address in Wilmington, Delaware.

The so-called "spot" means that the fund directly holds the cryptocurrency itself, rather than tracking its price through futures contracts. The prospectus describes this very clearly: the trust holds ZEC directly, does not use leverage, and does not involve derivatives. This distinction is crucial for price, because spot funds must buy real coins from the market when money flows in, while futures funds simply exchange between contracts.

The exchange mentioned in the document is Nasdaq Stock Market, LLC and is subject to an issue notice process. This is again a statement of intent rather than a formal approval. A prospectus is available on the SEC.

Rate comparison: huge gap between 0.25% and 2.5%

As of now, there is only one Zcash spot ETF on the U.S. market. Grayscale listed it as a ZCSH code under NYSE Arca on August 25, 2026, and the fund was converted from an existing trust that began in a private offering in 2017. Its annual rate is 2.5%. Grayscale has announced that it will reinvest revenue from the fee into the Zcash ecosystem in its first year, such as for marketing and education.

For comparison, Winklevoss submitted a fund setting rate of 0.25%. The prospectus states that the trust fund pays the promoter "a flat annual fee equivalent to 0.25% of the value of the trust fund's ZEC position." A "flat fee" means that this single fee covers operating costs rather than charging separately for hosting, management and auditing.

Translating this gap into a specific amount will be obvious. If you invest $10,000, ZCSH costs $250 per year, compared with just $25 for newly submitted funds. Over five years and with the same price, the difference is US$1,250 to US$125. In a product that does nothing other than hold cryptocurrency, rates are the only cost item investors can determine.

Flat Fee: How Sponsors Fees Affect Fund Assets

Sponsors fees are not deducted separately, but are deducted from fund assets, usually through periodic sales of small coin holdings by the fund. Thus, an ETF with a 2.5% rate would have about 2.5% fewer coins per share a year later than it did at the start, even if the price remained the same. Share prices move with the market, but the asset backing behind each share is decreasing.

This is where the real leverage of this filing lies: a competitor with ten times lower costs not only for new investors, but also for existing positions. If ZCSH holders see WINK approved, they have calculable reasons to convert. The conversion between two spot funds needs to be completed by redemption of one party and subscription of the other. This precisely produced outflow data that looked like selling pressure, but in fact not a single coin left the market as a whole.

Gemini Trust Company as trustee: same family business

托管人为 Gemini Trust Company, LLC。招股说明书将其描述为发起人的关联公司。ZEC 将存放在隔离的冷存储中，即与互联网断开的托管方式。

这种紧密关系并非指控，且在文件中公开披露。然而，这是监管机构在 ETF 申请中经常审查的一点，因为发起人和托管人属于同一所有者圈子。这里最关键的是趋势方向：同时运营交易所和托管服务的企业，可以提供比需要外包这两项服务的发起人更便宜的基金。因此，0.25% 的费率既是一个具有竞争力的价格，也是该公司自身结构的结果。

$1 亿美元的意向书：无约束力承诺的价值

招股说明书指出，Winklevoss Capital Fund, LLC 通过一个或多个关联公司表示有兴趣购买价值高达 1,000 万美元的股份。此类意向书明确表示不具有约束力。招股说明书本身指出，买家可以购买更多、更少或根本不购买股份。

这类承诺出现在招股说明书中，是因为没有起始规模的基金在交易所几乎无法交易。作为未来需求的证据，这个数字毫无用处。它表明发起人愿意将自己的资金与产品放在一起，并指出了数量级。除此之外，它没有任何其他含义。

ZEC 价格分析：10月6日的申报并未反映在价格中

As of October 9, 2026, Zcash was trading at $1,218.82 on the OKX spot market and $1,216.60 on the Coinbase Exchange. Relative to the rolling window of the past 24 hours, the gains were 8.5%(OKX) and 9.1%(Coinbase). The price range for the day was $1,112 to $1,247, with a market cap of about $19.9 billion, ranking tenth.

However, this increase is not a response to the declaration, and such an interpretation would lead to the wrong conclusion. On October 6, when the filing was filed, ZEC closed at US$1,367.26. Since then, prices have fallen by 10.8%. The daily gains were a recovery from a slide on October 8, when prices fell from $1,327.62 to $1,186.61, hitting a low of $1,112.27 en route.

In the past seven days, Zcash's performance fell, while the market recovered that day: Bitcoin rose 2.2% and Ethereum rose 2.1%. Obviously, applying for lower-cost investment products is not a driving force for price while approval has not yet been determined.

Looking back at the report on October 5: It fell 8.8% to an intraday low of US$1,112

We reported the first weekly outflow of funds from the Grayscale Zcash ETF on October 5, when the outflow was US$93.56 million in a week. Compared with the day's closing price of US$1,337.45, ZEC fell 8.8% today. A 14-day high of $1,697.45 set on September 26 is now 28% higher than current prices.

事件发生的顺序描绘出一幅单独的报道无法呈现的画面。首先是资金从昂贵的基金中流出，然后价格跌至数周低点，在此之后，竞争对手才以十分之一的费率提交了产品。发行者在弱势阶段提交申请，瞄准的是明天的费率市场，而不是今天的价格。

更便宜的基金并不能改变德国散户无法购买美国现货 ETF 的事实

纳斯达克的 WINK：对德国投资组合而言，该基金依然遥不可及

对于德国的散户投资者来说，美国的加密货币现货 ETF 实际上是不可购买的。原因存在于欧洲的分销规则中：如果 PRIIPs 条例规定的关键信息文件不存在于相关国家语言版本中，基金只能向欧盟的零售客户分销。美国发行人不生产该文件，因为他们不服务于欧盟零售市场。因此，德国的经纪商禁止交易此类证券。

这也适用于 ZCSH，第二只更便宜的美国基金不会改变这一点。目前正在美国解决的费率问题，只有当你考虑绕过这一障碍时，才会触及德国投资组合。这是不建议的做法，因为这会移除建立在障碍基础上的投资者保护。

通过 ETP 和加密货币交易所的路径：持有期、托管和市场准入

There are two other paths that work in Germany. The first is crypto-securities traded through exchanges, commonly referred to as ETP or ETN. It is a debt instrument that tracks the price of cryptocurrencies and can be traded on European exchanges, but legally it is not a fund. Whether you can buy depends on which trading venues your broker offers. See our overview of crypto ETFs for German investors for the differences between different product categories.

The second path is to purchase coins directly through a MiCA-authorized cryptocurrency exchange. MiCA is the EU regulation on the crypto asset market; since it came into force, providers need to obtain permission from European regulators to provide services in the EU. Which institutions can display this license, see our overview of regulated cryptocurrency exchanges.

Taxation treats these two paths differently. For coins held directly, the speculative period stipulated in Article 23 of the German Income Tax Law applies: after one year of holding, the proceeds of sale are exempt from tax; while sales within one year are counted as private disposal. For securities, the withholding tax rate on investment income applies regardless of the duration of the holding period. Holding coins yourself means keeping them on the exchange or in your own hands; self-managed device types vary widely in terms of operation and security.

Article 79 of the EU Anti-Money Laundering Regulation: Regulated transactions will end on July 10, 2027

这里有一个对德国 ZEC 持有者比任何美国批准都更重要的日期。根据欧盟第 2024/1624 号反洗钱法规，第 79(1) 条禁止信贷机构、金融机构和加密资产服务提供商保持匿名账户。措辞明确涵盖允许隐藏交易的账户，“包括通过使用增强匿名性的硬币”。

根据第 90 条，该法规将于 2027 年 7 月 10 日生效，某些义务实体例外，其相关日期为 2029 年 7 月 10 日。官方公报中的法规文本可免费获取。我们在 2026 年 10 月 5 日的报道中曾给出 2027 年 7 月 1 日的时间点；但第 90 条规定的日期才是具有约束力的日期。

该法规针对的是服务提供商，而非个人。私有持有 Zcash 不受其影响。消失的是有序的市场准入：获得欧盟授权的交易所在那之后将无法在交易或托管中携带 ZEC。因此，在实际操作上卖出或转移仍然容易的时间点位于该日期之前，而不是之后。

文件中未提及的内容：时间表、审批及撤回风险

招股说明书缺少三方面的信息，而对于首次申报来说这是正常的。没有批准日期，没有推出日期，也没有纳斯达克关于上市的承诺。S-1 表格可以在数月内被修正、撤回或受到监管机构的评论，直到其生效。Grayscale 基金走的是通过现有信托并进行转换的路径，而非全新注册。

此外，SEC 是否会以不同于第一只的方式评估第二种具有屏蔽功能的加密货币现货基金，目前尚不清楚。文件未对此做出说明，此时的评估将是毫无根据的猜测。

我们的评估：在没有批准的情况下，费率之争仍只是一纸申请

在我们新闻编辑室看来，此次申报对美国基金市场具有重要意义，而对德国投资者而言暂时只是一个注脚。来自本文的三个证据支持这一观点：费率从 2.5% 降至 0.25% 的差异是可计算的，并影响到现有持仓；价格反应缺失，因为 ZEC 比申报当天的价格低 10.8%；PRIIPs 阻碍使得美国基金无论费率高低都无法进入德国投资组合。

有一个论点我们不能轻视：如果美国的费率竞争将资本吸引到 Zcash 产品中，这会通过现货市场间接影响欧洲支付的价格。但这只是间接途径，且依赖于尚未确定的审批。我们不从中得出买入或卖出的建议；加密货币资产可能会完全失去其价值。

Zcash ETF：在没有批准的情况下，2027 年 7 月 10 日仍是更严峻的日期

基于当前局势，有三步建议：

1. 下单前确定产品类型。 ZCSH 和已提交的 WINK 都是美国基金，对你不可用；可交易的是欧洲证券和硬币本身。区别详见我们关于德国投资者的加密 ETF 概览。
2. Determine the authorization status of the institution. If you buy or hold ZEC directly, please choose a provider with a European license; see our overview of regulated cryptocurrency exchanges for details on the current situation.
3. July 10, 2027 will be included in the plan. From this date, authorized EU providers may no longer trade or hold Zcash. Those who previously transferred coins to self-custody can find the device type in our overview of hardware wallets.

(As of October 9, 2026. This article does not constitute investment advice. Price and rate structures are subject to change; please check terms with your provider before purchasing.)