.@naval’s right to frame zec as insurance against bitcoin. if bitcoin ends up fully surveilled via etfs and custodians, this is the insurance against insurance. but the lore even runs deeper: >born in 2016 as a bitcoin fork with zk-snarks bolted on >famous powers of tau ceremony where devs burned secret keys to prevent backdoors >2017: ripped to $876 in the ico mania, then nuked under $50 as privacy coins got delisted >edward snowden called it “the most interesting bitcoin alternative” >spent years in the wilderness with <20% of supply in shielded addresses, critics calling it a prolonged beta >mid 2024: all-time low at $17 >now 2025: record shielded txs, zashi wallet enabling cross-chain payments, zsas coming, and for the first time in 8 years, zec/btc breaking trend zec has always been the cypherpunks hedge.