Arthur Hayes said NEAR and Zcash are at the core of his privacy trade, arguing that cryptocurrency markets are beginning to revalue assets tied to the transfer of private value, AI-era sovereignty and true protocol economics. In an interview with The Rollup, CIO Maelstrom said NEAR could offer “20x potential” while Zcash could have “5x potential” over the next year, viewing both assets as part of a broader response to “big tech, big government” and AI-powered surveillance.

Hayes’s thesis begins with a macroshift. Earlier this year, he said he remained cautious because Bitcoin appeared to be pricing in an “AI-driven deflationary credit event” and monetary authorities were unlikely to print aggressively until the crisis forced them to. This changed, he argued, after the conflict in Iran created a favorable market configuration for liquidity.

“Governments are printing money to win the war. Artificial intelligence is part of the war. Artificial intelligence capital expenditures will be borne by governments in both the United States and China,” Hayes said. He added that governments in the U.S., China and Europe will likely fund the wartime economy and AI infrastructure through monetary expansion, with some of that liquidity leaking into Bitcoin and select crypto assets.

Why NEAR and Zcash?

Hayes’s harshest comments were reserved for privacy. He once again confirmed that Zcash is his “second largest portfolio” and said the asset is once again investable after earlier concerns about its trusted setup, issuance profile and developer subsidies fell by the wayside. In his opinion, the venerable Zcash transaction was too early and too disordered. The recent one is cleaner, more fluid and more relevant to the current political and technological moment.

“There is nothing wrong with wanting to have private money online,” Hayes said. “And that’s what Zcash represents, that’s what Monero represents. And as we learn how big tech, big government and artificial intelligence can essentially know everything about us and track everything that happens in our lives, having clean, cryptographically validated privacy with money is going to be very necessary.”

Hayes said his renewed interest in Zcash was piqued after a conversation with Naval Ravikant during Tokyo 2049. According to Hayes, Ravikant argued that Monero ring signatures were weaker than commonly assumed, and referenced a Japanese law enforcement case involving deanonymization. Hayes said he bought $1 million worth of Zcash “right then and there” and then continued to raise funds as he further analyzed his thesis.

The price target came as Hayes linked Zcash to NEAR’s role in increasing the utility of private value transfer between assets and networks. He argued that shielded Zcash itself is vital, but greater opportunities arise when users can switch from shielded ZEC to other assets, including stablecoins, through NEAR Intents.

“With the ZODL app, I can now anonymously send any crypto asset to anyone over the internet. With Shielded Zcash, using the Near Intents feature. Now I have, you know, USDT on Tron and I have sent it to anyone I intend to send it to, anonymously. That’s huge,” Hayes said.

This is where his growth estimates diverge. Hayes said Zcash remains the primary expression of privacy trading, but NEAR may offer a more asymmetric setup because it is tied to the execution layer behind confidential transfers. “I think Near has 20x potential, while Zcash could have 5x potential over the next year or something,” he said. “So you scale your capital allocation according to risk.”

NEAR co-founder Illia Polosukhin reinforced the economic side of this argument, saying that NEAR Intents’ lifetime turnover is approaching $20 billion, with $18.9 billion cited in the interview, and has also generated $33 million in fees. He said NEAR collects a fee on each transaction and uses it to buy back NEAR, while the ecosystem has already cut inflation in half and could push for further reductions as revenues escalate.

Hayes also linked trading to the token structure. He said NEAR benefits from “full dilution,” which avoids the huge venture allocation overhang that continues to burden many L1 assets. He argued that a pure supply profile is vital for a token that is expected to appear on an exclusive market.

Risk, in Hayes’s approach, is of a macro nature. He said he intended to maintain this position until the broader liquidity context changes, but warned that a reduction in government support for AI investment or a worsening war scenario would change the configuration. For now, he sees privacy, AI-linked sovereignty, and stock market revenues as the most market-proof transactions.

At the time of publication, Zcash was trading at $624.

Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com