Data & Insights: Zcash Trust Sees Doubling in Volume; USDT Supply Highs

ZODL

• The Grayscale Zcash Trust (ZCSH), which tracks the Zcash token, ZEC, has averaged roughly $1.7 million in daily volume so far in April, more than double the figure from the previous month.
  • Despite still being far lower than the volumes posted in the last two months of 2025, ZEC spot ETF’s recent volume uptick represents its highest level since January.
• Alongside this, ZEC’s shielded supply continues to make record highs as the privacy use case continues to structurally grow.
  • The Orchard pool, which uses Halo 2 zero-knowledge (ZK) proofs and is the only pool meaningful ZEC holders are migrating into, has grown from 1.92 million ZEC to 4.55 million ZEC in the last twelve months.
  • Nearly 30% of all circulating ZEC now sits behind a shielded balance, the highest ratio in history.
• The price of ZEC itself currently stands at $355, up 65% in the last 30 days.
  • Despite the strong recent performance, ZEC is still down by 30% YTD
  • It will be worth watching whether the ZCSH Trust can sustain over $2 million in daily volume into the new month, as it can be argued that ZCSH volume is now a direct proxy and a real-time gauge of regulated institutional appetite for privacy assets.
  • Additionally, whether shielded supply continues to make new highs re-ignites an upwards repricing of ZEC, similar to what occurred in Q4 of last year.

Fee-asting Revenue

• Polymarket's crypto up/down weekly volume fell under $240 million last week, down by over 58% from its peak during the first week of March.
  • Throughout all this, daily fees collected by Polymarket have risen to a $1.07 million 7-day average, compared to just $350K in late March.
  • The most straightforward assumption is that Polymarket’s introduction of fees directly caused the downturn in its crypto volume.
  • However, the reality is far more nuanced
  • Polymarket introduced fees in early January, and crypto-prediction volume actually doubled until March.
• The real reason for the collapse in volume was Polymarket's adjustment of the effective take rate from 0.37% in March to 2.65% in April.
  • This simply caused a unit-economics destruction for the high-frequency cohort that partakes in Polymarket’s crypto up/down markets.
  • These markets, especially the 5-minute and 15-minute ones, are scalped by professional market makers, prop traders and algorithms running thousands of trades per day.
  • The new 2.65% fee on notional volume turns most of those strategies cash-flow negative, hence the exodus.
• With this adjustment, Polymarket’s take-rate is a transition from a volume business to a margin business.
  • Polymarket is on pace to generate roughly $32 million in monthly fees at the current run-rate, compared to just under $9 million in March, before the fee adjustment.
  • At the current rate, Polymarket is now substantially more profitable per dollar of volume for its crypto up/down markets.
  • However, if volume continues to fall to under $150 million per week, there is a possibility that Polymarket will face pressure to either roll back rates or introduce maker rebates.

Stablecoin Rebalancing

• Tether's USDT supply has reached an all-time high of ~$190 billion, with nearly $3 billion minted in the past week alone.
  • It is worth noting that prior to this, USDT supply had not made a new record high since December 2025, meaning it took nearly five months for it to do so again by adding ~$5 billion.
  • What’s interesting is that out of that 5 billion, 3 billion were minted in the past week alone.
  • The composition shifts within total stablecoin supply, which is actually slightly down over the past week (-$0.57 billion), map directly onto the KelpDAO bank run timeline. 
• Aggregate DeFi TVL fell by ~$13 billion in the two days after the April 18 KelpDAO exploit
  • This led to lending protocols rate-limiting withdrawals, and yield-bearing stablecoin holders rotating out of anything with smart-contract or counterparty risk.
  • The downstream effects were notably seen in USDe, which saw a 33% decline (worth roughly ~$2 billion) in its supply during this period, adding further downside pressure to total USDe supply, currently at a ~75% drawdown from its October 2025 peak.
  • PYUSD supply also declined by -17%, equivalent to roughly $730 million.
  • As for the impact on Tether itself, $3 billion of net inflows it absorbed in a week, deployed at the current risk-free rate of ~4.3%, equals an additional ~$130M/year in incremental risk-free revenue from this single event alone.

PACs Going Crypto

• This week, we're highlighting The Block's new elections hub, where we’ll be tracking crypto-related political spending, PAC fundraising, and policy developments ahead of the 2026 midterms. One dataset worth examining is how crypto PAC funding has scaled into one of the more significant lobbying forces on Capitol Hill.
  • Fairshake, the industry's largest super PAC backed primarily by Coinbase, Ripple, and a16z, has raised $394.68 million across the 2024 and 2026 election cycles. 
  • The 2024 cycle accounted for roughly $350 million of that total, with approximately $130 million deployed across House and Senate races. 
• To contextualize the scale, crypto PACs now account for some of the largest PAC spenders in Washington. 
  • That positioning, achieved in just three election cycles, underscores how rapidly the industry has prioritized political capital allocation as a strategic lever.
• The spending has coincided with tangible legislative outcomes. The GENIUS Act, signed into law in July 2025, established the first federal regulatory framework for payment stablecoins. 
• The broader market-structure bill, the CLARITY Act, passed the House in the same legislative session and remains under consideration in the Senate. Both pieces of legislation were priorities for industry-backed PACs.
• With the 2026 midterm cycle still months from peak spending season, crypto PACs are sitting on a large treasury of unspent capital set to help further expand the industry’s footprint.

A Million BTC Question

• Corporate bitcoin treasuries now collectively hold over 1.13 million BTC, representing roughly 1 out of every 21 bitcoin in circulation. 
  • The steady accumulation trend visible since early 2025 shows no signs of slowing, with holdings climbing from around 400,000 BTC in April 2025 to current levels in just over a year.
• Notably, while BTC holdings have risen in a near-linear fashion, cumulative market cap has been far more volatile. The aggregate market cap peaked near $380 billion around August 2025, fell to roughly $280 billion by December, and has since recovered toward $360 billion. 
  • This divergence highlights how the market value of these treasury strategies remains tightly coupled to spot BTC price movements, even as the underlying accumulation pace stays consistent.
  • MicroStrategy remains the dominant player, holding approximately 815,000 BTC, or roughly 72% of all corporate treasury bitcoin. 
• Separately, bitcoin spot ETFs now collectively hold an estimated 1.6 million BTC, adding another layer of passive, concentrated ownership. While ETF redemption mechanics differ meaningfully from corporate treasury dynamics, both pools represent large, relatively price-insensitive holdings that reduce freely circulating supply.
• Combined, corporate treasuries and ETFs account for roughly 2.7 million BTC, or about 13% of total supply. As both categories continue to grow, the practical float available for active trading narrows further, a dynamic that could amplify volatility in either direction during periods of significant inflows or redemptions.