Winklevoss Zcash ETF: WINK Files S-1 With a 0.25% Fee

Short answer: On October 6, 2026, Winklevoss Asset Services, a newly formed sponsor in the group behind the Gemini exchange, filed a preliminary Form S-1 with the SEC for the Winklevoss Zcash ETF. The fund would hold ZEC directly, list on Nasdaq under the ticker WINK, charge a 0.25% annual fee and keep its coins with Gemini Trust Company in cold storage. It is a registration filing, not an approval: shares cannot be sold until the registration becomes effective, and no launch date is given.

What exactly was filed?

The document on SEC EDGAR is a registration statement for a Delaware statutory trust, the Winklevoss Zcash ETF, formed the same day as the filing. Its cover line states it was filed with the Commission on October 6, 2026. The sponsor, Winklevoss Asset Services, LLC, is wholly owned by Winklevoss Asset Services Holdings. CSC Delaware Trust Company is named trustee; the administrator, transfer agent and marketing agent are still blank in this preliminary version, as is the seed share count.

The structure is the familiar one for spot crypto ETFs: the trust holds ZEC itself, not futures, and authorized participants create and redeem shares in cash. The sponsor takes a single unified fee of 0.25% per year on the trust's ZEC holdings and pays most ordinary expenses out of it. Like other spot crypto trusts, it is not registered under the Investment Company Act of 1940.

Two details stand out. First, Winklevoss Capital Fund, an affiliate, has indicated interest in buying up to $100 million of shares; the filing stresses this is not a binding commitment. Second, the trust has signed Cypherpunk Technologies, a Nasdaq-listed company that holds ZEC in its treasury and is backed by Tyler Winklevoss, as its "Zcash Ecosystem Partner" for protocol guidance and help with coinholder polling.

Key facts

How does WINK compare with other ZEC products?

Grayscale's ZCSH, converted from the old Grayscale Zcash Trust, began trading on NYSE Arca on August 25, 2026, and remains the only live US spot ZEC ETF. We covered that launch and the run above $1,000 in Zcash tops $1,000 for the first time since 2016. Since then, according to The Block, ZCSH has drawn more than $233 million in inflows and announced a 3-for-1 share split. Its total expense ratio is 2.5%, so the proposed WINK fee is a tenth of that.

The Block describes the Winklevoss filing as the third attempt at a US spot Zcash ETF, after Grayscale and Bitwise; Bitwise's ZEC product came from a batch of "strategy" ETF filings and is not trading. A fee war of this kind is what happened with spot Bitcoin and Ether ETFs: once several issuers compete, fees tend to fall and the cheapest funds usually gather flows, though Grayscale's head start matters.

There is also some history here. The Winklevoss twins first filed for a spot Bitcoin ETF in 2013, and the SEC rejected it in 2017 over price-manipulation concerns. Gemini was also the first licensed exchange to offer Zcash trading and custody.

When could WINK start trading?

An S-1 has no fixed review clock. The SEC staff comments, the issuer files amendments, and the registration becomes effective only when the process is finished. Nasdaq would also need a listing basis: either a 19b-4 rule change, which has a maximum review period of 240 days, or the generic listing standards for commodity-based trust shares the SEC adopted in 2025. Because a US ETF holding ZEC already trades, ZEC may meet those standards, which would shorten the path, but neither the filing nor the coverage gives a date. Treat any launch timeline you see as speculation until an amended S-1 with a fee and seed details appears.

Shielded vs transparent: what does an ETF mean for Zcash privacy?

Zcash has two kinds of addresses. Transparent addresses (starting with t1 or t3) work like Bitcoin: balances and transfers are public. Shielded addresses (unified addresses starting with u1, or older Sapling zs1 addresses) use zero-knowledge proofs to hide sender, recipient and amount. The S-1 cites network statistics in which about 45% of transactions were fully transparent, 45% involved one shielded side and only about 10% were shielded on both ends.

An ETF is, by design, the transparent side of Zcash. The filing says the custodian keeps the trust's ZEC in segregated cold-storage addresses that can be verified on the Zcash blockchain, which points to auditable holdings rather than shielded ones, although the excerpt does not spell out the address type. It also says the trust does not expect to take part in coinholder polls, since those require holding shielded ZEC in a self-custodied wallet. ETF investors get price exposure, not privacy.

The filing does not hide the risks. It describes the late-May 2026 flaw in the Orchard shielded pool that could have allowed counterfeit ZEC, a price drop of about 50% after disclosure, and the Ironwood upgrade (NU6.3, activated July 28, 2026) that moved new shielded activity to a fresh pool and limited Orchard mostly to withdrawals. It also warns that businesses facilitating ZEC transactions could face lawsuits or lose services because of the coin's privacy features.

What could the ETF give ZEC?

• A second regulated wrapper at a much lower fee, which may draw investors who passed on a 2.5% product.
• Regulated custody demand. Coins in ETF cold storage are typically taken out of circulation on exchanges, adding to holdings by Grayscale and treasury companies like Cypherpunk.
• Legitimacy signal. A privacy coin held by NYDFS-supervised custody under SEC disclosure makes outright delisting harder to justify, though exchange policies differ by jurisdiction.
• Limits. A filing is not approval, the $100M interest is non-binding, and much of the 2026 rally may already reflect ETF expectations.

None of this is investment advice; it describes the filing and its possible effects, not a reason to buy or sell.

Holding or swapping ZEC: a practical checklist

1. Decide what you want: price exposure in a brokerage account (an ETF) or the coin itself, with the option to use shielded addresses. Only the second gives you privacy and self-custody.
2. Check the address type before sending. Some exchanges only support transparent t-addresses for deposits and withdrawals; sending from or to an unsupported type can delay or block funds.
3. Use a current wallet. After Ironwood, make sure your wallet supports the new shielded pool and handles migration out of Orchard correctly.
4. Compare rates. ZEC liquidity and spreads vary a lot between services; the exchangers list on changerella.com shows rates side by side, and the Changerella app lets you swap without registration to your own wallet.
5. Send a small test amount first on any new route or address format.
6. Read up on privacy practice. Our best privacy coins of 2026 guide explains how Zcash differs from Monero.

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