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As the Winklevoss twins Naval Ravikant and Balaji Srinivasan support the launch of Zcash (ZEC), its success could spur the Bitcoin ecosystem to push for more privacy features by re-enabling OP_CAT, in line with Eli Ben-Sasson, founding father of StarkWare and renowned mathematician who pioneered zero-knowledge proofs.
Zcash was inspired by Bitcoin
In 2014, Ben-Sasson and his co-authors published “Zerocash: Decentralized Anonymous Payments from Bitcoin.”
The White Paper was the culmination of six years of theoretical work. Since 2008, Ben-Sasson and his colleagues have been working on a universally applicable, knowledge-free technology. Even though they didn't have a use case, they knew the technology was incredibly powerful.
Zcash has been trending on crypto Twitter for months.
Not many know the backstory behind the most important cryptocurrency within the privacy space.
We chat with @EliBenSasson concerning the story of @Zcash and the ZK technology behind it.
Join me and @rkbaggs live!https://t.co/ZRh96OzBD7
— Gareth Jenkinson (@gazza_jenks) November 10, 2025
“We knew that zero-knowledge proofs solve two problems: scalability and privacy. They provide integrity. They can mainly persuade you that the suitable thing was done, even for those who're not watching and also you don't see all the main points,” Ben-Sasson told Cointelegraph's Chain Reaction live show on X.
Everything modified in 2013, when Ben-Sasson gave a chat on ZK at certainly one of the primary editions of the Bitcoin conference.
These early Bitcoin (BTC) developers and proponents outlined several ways Bitcoin may benefit from the brand new methodology. Suddenly ZK proofs had found their killer use case.
“So we've been working very diligently to release something that shows how this technology can solve certainly one of the important thing problems with blockchains, which is the indisputable fact that in a Bitcoin transaction, anyone can see the quantity and just about determine who paid who and the way much.”
While this transparency is intentional, it implies that there’s an inescapable element of transparency when using Bitcoin. ZK proofs offer an answer, however the Bitcoin code doesn’t allow their inclusion because of a choice by Satoshi Nakamoto a few years ago.
Why OP_CAT is the important thing to data protection in Bitcoin
Ben-Sasson said Bitcoin can proceed to supply native privacy and unlimited scalability if developers can conform to reintroduce OP_CAT, a Satoshi-era OP_Code that Bitcoin's inventor disabled in 2010.
He also noted that Zcash's resurgence in 2025 could function a possible catalyst for Bitcoin's push for privacy.
There were rumors about Bitcoin traders exchanging BTC for Zcash 🤔🔏
Why? Because some Bitcoiners wish to find a way to process transactions with more privacy.
BUT Bitcoin can still have NATURAL privacy and scalability. @EliBenSasson explains how ZK proofs and OP_CAT are the important thing 🗝️👇
We caught… pic.twitter.com/UTwb6U2hbg
— Gareth Jenkinson (@gazza_jenks) November 12, 2025
“I hope that one consequence of that is that the Bitcoin community becomes more open to things like OP_CAT and OP_STARK in order that they will get post-quantum security, privacy, scalability and programmability for this beautiful hard asset, Bitcoin,” said Ben-Sasson.
“The technology is prepared. All you would like is a soft fork that adds nine lines of code that Satoshi actually introduced. It's called OP_CAT. It's very, quite simple. If there's a will, there's a way. In this case, it's a quite simple approach to give Bitcoin itself all these benefits.”
Prominent Bitcoiners on social media have largely stayed away from the Zcash narrative, and there remains to be no real discussion about ways to enhance privacy when using Bitcoin for payments.
Cointelegraph also spoke exclusively with Gemini co-founders Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss at Bitcoin Amsterdam, who shared their belief in Zcash's potential as a complement to Bitcoin.
The twins made headlines after announcing the formation of Cypherpunk Technologies, a ZEC-based treasury firm, in November following the acquisition and rebranding of Nasdaq-listed Leap Therapeutics.
