Arthur Hayes Is Betting Bigger On Zcash Than NEAR — Even As He Sees 20x Upside In NEAR

• Arthur Hayes projected Zcash would outperform NEAR despite Zcash's 5x upside versus NEAR's 20x.
• Arthur Hayes said Zcash is the “first place” investors will go in a privacy-focused crypto cycle, even as he projects larger upside for NEAR.
• Hayes suggested sending protected Zcash via NEAR intents into USDT on Tron for "in an anonymous fashion" spending.

BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes laid out the structure of his "privacy thesis" trade, with Zcash (ZEC) and Near (NEAR) as the two assets he sees benefiting from an upcoming reckoning over surveillance in what he termed "this AI, big tech, big government universe that we live in."

On Monday’s The Rollup podcast, Hayes made Zcash the larger position, even though he gave it the smaller multiple, a risk-weighted construction he made explicit on the call.

"I think Near has a 20x potential, where you know Zcash might have a 5x potential over the next year, something like that," Hayes said, "so you scale the capital that you allocate according to the risk." He added that, "I didn't scale the near position as large as Zcash, but I think NEAR has a 20x potential ... that's why I think these two assets form the core of my privacy thesis on how we at Maelstrom are going to profit from the realization that privacy matters."

Hayes: Zcash As The Obvious First Stop

Hayes saw Zcash as the default for anyone operating within a privacy narrative, citing both its inherent position and its chart. The token is “not a lot off its all-time high, just like everything else in crypto,” he said on the call. "Obviously, Zcash, the first place you're going to go," he said. The cleaner of the two trades is why it carries more of the capital, even though the implied upside is lower, explained Hayes.

At the time of writing, ZEC’s price was trading at $610, down over 7% in the last 24 hours. On Stocktwits, ZCash was one of the top trending tickers. Retail sentiment around ZEC remained in the ‘bullish’ zone, while chatter dipped to ‘high’ from ‘extremely high’ levels over the past day.

NEAR's Bull Case Is Built On ‘Intents’

The case for NEAR is on execution rails, Hayes explained. Hayes spoke about a flow that he has run himself. "From Shielded Zcash using near intents, now I'm into, you know, USDT on Tron (TRX), and I've sent it to whoever I'm going to send it to in an anonymous fashion, that's huge."

The utility of moving shielded value across chains and into spendable assets is why the second leg works, argued Hayes. "If you're enabling people to essentially send a value anonymously using the blockchain at any time, that's huge as well,” Hayes said.

On the same podcast, the host cited usage data suggesting the Zcash/NEAR pairing is more than a thesis. NEAR intents are "nearing $20 billion of volume ... $18.9 billion" all-time, generating "$33 million of fees," with the host noting "a lot of this has been Zcash, because it's kind of the only place to do this."

Hayes also attempted to pin down NEAR co-founder Illia Polosukhin on when the protocol’s intents revenue would surpass token inflation and make NEAR deflationary. The team is targeting next year, Polosukhin said, calling it a dual push of “growing revenue and reducing inflation.”

NEAR’s price was trading at $2.73, up over 13% in the last 24 hours. On Stocktwits, retail sentiment on NEAR remained in the ‘extremely bullish’ zone, while chatter stayed at ‘extremely high’ levels over the past day.

The Macro Signals That Hayes Is Watching 

Hayes stressed that the trade is against a macro backdrop, not a price target. "I've picked my assets, and I'm going to hold until the macro changes," he said. "I'll change my mind in an instant if the macro changes."

The signals he is watching are particular. One is the AI capex cycle running out of credit. “The government saying, okay, we're no longer going to spend all this AI capex with debt, when it eventually runs out of the cash flow to pay for it." 

Another is political. Hayes said that AOC is underpriced at 9% to win the 2028 Democratic nomination and that her message on AI-driven inequality could force a reprice. “Investors are going to freak out ... maybe I should take some chips off the table." Until one of those breaks, he said, "long and strong, the trend is our friend until it ain't."

Read also: Tom Lee’s BMNR Is Sitting On $8 Billion In Unrealized Losses On Its Ethereum Position, Eyes A Russell 1000 Inclusion

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