Data & Insights: Zcash Stays Private; Bitcoin Searches Still Low

Staying Private

• Nearly 5 million ZEC sit in shielded pools, roughly 23% of the supply. This matches nearly the 5.15 million peak from late May, before a headline about vulnerabilities in the Orchard pool caused 750k ZEC to withdraw. 
  • Since then, ZEC users have migrated to Ironwood, a new pool with mechanisms to verify that the full balance is backed. 
• As a reminder, Zcash privacy is opt-in. The majority of tokens live in transparent addresses that act like Bitcoin; senders, recipients, and amounts are all visible. Only when coins are shielded by moving into one of the zero-knowledge pools do the coins become private. 
  • Sprout, Sapling, and Orchard are all previous pools that still hold residual balance, but the vast majority of supply going forward will be held in the Ironwood pool. 
• Orchard held a peak of 4.5 million ZEC tokens shortly before the vulnerability was discussed publicly. Ironwood already holds 3.9 million tokens despite only launching in July. Growth for this pool continues, now taking up 80% of the shielded supply market share. 
  • Despite setbacks with Orchard, privacy remains a growth vector for Zcash as users increasingly explore the privacy features ZEC offers. Ironwood likely continues to be the go-to pool while more of the supply is shielded and private.

Where is Retail?

• Despite rising more than 20% over the last 3 months, bitcoin web traffic has continued to put in new lows, with September set to be the 4th consecutive low at 17. The values track search volume across Google and are scored on a scale of 0-100. 
  • This level of disinterest aligns well with the last two times search volume has been this low. The two previous instances of search volume this low were Oct 2024 and Sept 2023. In both instances, Bitcoin proceeded to put in massive gains shortly after.
• While the sample size is small, search volume has been a useful indicator of retail sentiment around Bitcoin and crypto as a whole. The bottoming of sentiment has typically correlated with cycle bottoms as people go through depression, shortly followed by disbelief. 
  • While some attention has shifted toward Bitcoin ETFs, most retail mindshare will still likely flow through Bitcoin as a keyword. 
• Outside of Bitcoin, memecoins have continued an impressive upward trend and recovered to their September 2025 highs. Despite Bitcoin mindshare being more cyclical, memecoins have grown to become an extension of popular culture and could prove a resilient niche of the industry.

Alternative Assets

• Altcoin ETFs are heating up as more investors are looking down the risk curve, while Bitcoin consolidated in the 75-80k price range last week. 
  • Top altcoin price performers include ZEC, HYPE, and SOL, which unsurprisingly saw some of the strongest ETF volumes. 
• Spot ETF market share for non-BTC and ETH ETFs started the year dominated by Solana and Ripple. Since then, new entrants Hyperliquid and Zcash have carved out market share, creating a much more competitive ETF landscape. 
  • Solana remains the largest token ETF by volume at 46%, while the remaining share is split among ZEC, XRP, and HYPE at 27%, 12%, and 11%, respectively. 
  • When we last covered this in July, SOL and HYPE combined for nearly 80% of altcoin ETF volume. ZEC has taken most of that share in under a month. 
  • The concentration of volume around ZEC has been fueled by the ETF listing itself and an announced 3-for-1 share split. 
• Altcoin ETFs offer investors a familiar wrapper for token exposure while keeping the assets within their traditional brokerages. For a privacy token, the ETF wrapper serves primarily as exposure to the price rather than the privacy feature set. 
• Despite the jostling for market share, altcoin ETFs are still in their infancy. When considering Bitcoin ETF volume, altcoin ETFs as a category account for less than 10% of daily volume. While Bitcoin may not be unseated as the leader, the market share will likely get much more competitive in the coming months.

Kalshi’s Perps Controversy

• Open interest (OI) on Kalshi's perpetual futures reached a record $30.7 million last week.
  • Volume over the past week also saw a ~16% WoW increase to over $6.2 billion, while average daily volume stands at ~$812 million, 65% more than the previous month.
  • Against Polymarket’s perps, the race, in terms of trading volume, doesn’t appear to be close either.
  • Kalshi’s ~$6 billion of volume in the last week completely eclipses
  • Polymarket’s ~$720 million despite the latter launching first.
  • Though compared against more established perp DEXs, Kalshi’s positioning completely inverts.
  • Hyperliquid’s volume in the last week was nearly 10x Kalshi’s, while its OI stands at over $8.1 billion.
  • Interestingly, it’s worth pointing out that Kalshi turns over 31.4x its open interest daily, while Hyperliquid turns over just 1.17x
  • Kalshi perps having billions of dollars in volume with just less than $30 million OI means the platform is carrying mostly intraday, less sticky positions that tend to close on the same day, as the heaviest critics could label this as “wash trading”.
• This is exactly what drew scrutiny over the weekend as well, when an X account named Beni published trade-level data alleging Kalshi inflates its perp volumes.
  • Beni flagged ~$539 million of 24-hour volume against just $3.1 million of OI on Kalshi’s ETH perps pair, a highly abnormal 174x ratio, which implies the entire outstanding position base changes hands once every eight minutes.
  • The trade-level breakdown also revealed repeated single $5,500 clips that accounted for 47-58% of the pair’s volume across four separate sessions between 16-20 September, with 81-87% of that clip’s flow round-tripping.
  • The account also highlighted the incentive in Kalshi's own CFTC filing: a temporary perp rebate program effective no earlier than 16 September and running to 31 December, under which eligible “Self-Clearing Members” net +0.3bp as maker against the 0.3bp paid as taker, implying zero net cost to trade against yourself.
• Kalshi’s crypto lead disputed the framing rather than the trades, arguing volume is reported as maximum potential payout rather than cash exchanged.
  • This saga is still unfolding as of the time of this newsletter, and it will be interesting to watch its developments, notably for a response from Kalshi’s broader team and for further revelations from Beni.

HOOD Doing Good

• Robinhood had just posted its August metrics for their product lines, which should bode well if you happen to be a HOOD investor.
  • The company reported $383.7 billion in “Total Platform Assets” for August, up 8% MoM and 26% YoY.
  • Funded customers reached over 28.6 million, up 7% YoY, while the company’s margin book grew by 4% MoM and 72% YoY.
• As for Robinhood’s crypto line, notional volume for August 2026 stood at $17.5 billion, a ~60% MoM increase.
  • The composition of that crypto volume continues to shift away from the flagship app as well.
  • Bitstamp now accounts for ~58% of crypto notional, up 51% YoY.
  • Meanwhile, Robinhood app volume for crypto rose 72% MoM.
  • As for Robinhood event contracts, also known as its prediction markets, the line declined by 23% MoM as it was one of Robinhood’s worst-performing businesses last month.
• On the other hand, Robinhood’s equities business continues to be their bread winner, with notional volumes of $335 billion, up 1% MoM and 68% YoY.
  • Options contracts fell 10% MoM to ~292 million, though still up 50% YoY.
  • It is worth remembering that August was the month when tokenized stock assets on Robinhood Chain started blowing up, so September’s report will likely show the true scale of how Robinhood Chain’s volumes have impacted the overall business.