In an exclusive interview with Cointelegraph, Bitcoin supporter Saifeddine Amos questioned the perceived importance of privacy as a key feature of money, sparking a lively debate among Bitcoiners and privacy advocates.
“Here’s the question: How much demand is there for money that can’t be degraded, and how much demand is there for money that can maintain privacy?” Amos said.
The author, Amos, bitcoin standarddescribed Zcash as a “shit coin” and expressed concern about the project’s initial launch, which had a trusted setup ceremony in 2016 to generate cryptographic parameters for privacy features.
“Everything is built on a trustworthy setup, and you have to trust a lot of people who started it all. I’m not in the mood to participate in this kind of stupid game,” Amos said.
While Amuth admitted that he did not have deep knowledge of Zcash’s protocol, he questioned whether Zcash’s privacy features would limit people’s ability to trust the total supply of ZEC tokens.
“As I understand it, the benefits of anonymity come at the expense of the benefits of auditability.”
Zcash has the ability to perform transactions using shielded and unshielded ZEC. Shielded ZEC is used in encrypted private transactions to hide the sender, recipient, and amount from the public blockchain. This privacy is achieved using zero-knowledge proofs. This allows the network to verify that a transaction is valid without revealing sensitive information.
Despite Ammous’ concerns, shielded and unshielded Zcash pools are publicly verifiable on several blockchain explorers.
Privacy vs hard money
Several key figures in the cryptocurrency industry weighed in on X’s post featuring Ammous’s comments about Zcash and the role of privacy in the use of money.
So what do hardcore Bitcoiners actually think about Zcash? 🤔
In the words of @saifedean: “Zcash is a shitty coin.”
Honestly, I was expecting that answer. But what he said about privacy and money was even more interesting 👇
“Here’s the question: How much demand is there for that money… pic.twitter.com/4rDQWzcTcj
— Gareth Jenkinson (@gazza_jenks) November 27, 2025
Helius co-founder Mert Mumtaz described Ammous’ questions about financial disparagement and privacy as a “false dichotomy.”
“You should have private money that hasn’t been devalued. That’s zcash. Plus, you can’t get free money from the state unless it’s private. If it’s seen, it can be seized.”
Barry Silbert, founder and CEO of Digital Currency Group, said privacy remains a core concern for Bitcoin supporters.
“I’m old enough to remember a time when all avid Bitcoiners cared about their privacy. Fortunately, many still do.”
Zcash co-founder Zooko Wilcox also commented on the thread, highlighting the fact that thanks to the transparency of Bitcoin’s blockchain, the Canadian government was able to track down Bitcoin addresses associated with the truckers’ strike.
Source: Gareth Jenkinson
X users continued to comment and discuss the benefits of privacy in money and the fundamental differences between Zcash and Bitcoin.
Amos acknowledged that privacy in blockchain is an evolving phenomenon. When it comes to Bitcoin, the professor believes that some of the privacy features desired by BTC users can be left to Layer 2 protocols and platforms.
“When it comes to privacy issues, it will be interesting to see how it evolves. One unpopular opinion I have is that on-chain privacy is very difficult and continues to get even more difficult. That’s not necessarily a bad thing because people can get the privacy they want in the second layer and I don’t think it violates their privacy.”
Related: What’s behind the surge in privacy tokens as the rest of the market weakens?
After all, Amos’ educational background remains rooted in the belief that hard money is essential to prosperity and economic growth.
“I think people prefer non-private hard money to private easy money. I think the narrative that people want privacy with their money has been greatly exaggerated to generate shitcoin marketing,” he said.
Amos added that money is “by its very nature an anti-private technology,” especially given that every transaction typically leaves a trail of information breadcrumbs, especially in the digital world.
“So it’s very hard to make money on something that’s private and on-chain, and it’s always going to be hard. But what people really want is resistance to derogation. That’s what actually has a total addressable market of $300 trillion.”
As 2025 draws to a close, there is renewed interest in Zcash. The privacy-enabled cryptocurrency rose to the top of Coinbase’s search rankings in November, and ZEC’s price has soared tenfold in recent months, pushing its market cap to over $10 billion at one point.
Magazine: When privacy and AML laws conflict: Impossible choices for encryption projects
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