Why ZEC and NEAR are winning crypto’s alternative asset bid in 2026

Zcash and NEAR Protocol have emerged as two of crypto’s strongest alternative trades in 2026, a move Bankless co-founder David Hoffman believes is being driven by investors moving some capital away from Bitcoin and Ethereum toward assets with stronger return narratives.

Hoffman said in a Sept. 23 post that ZEC has become what he calls the latest winner of the “Bitcoin Bid,” while NEAR has captured a similar position among smart contract platforms.

His argument centers on the size of Bitcoin’s existing pool of wealth. Bitcoin carries a market capitalization of roughly $1.7 trillion, while Zcash remains a fraction of that size even after its rally. Hoffman said only a small portion of Bitcoin holders would need to allocate some of their capital to ZEC for the smaller asset to experience substantial buying pressure.

Zcash’s market capitalization has climbed to roughly $26 billion after starting from a much smaller base, according to figures cited by Hoffman. The move has coincided with growing interest in privacy, quantum computing risks and regulated access to the asset.

The privacy coin market has grown nearly fivefold over the past year, according to a Sept. 22 report from 21Shares cited by crypto.news. The sector expanded from $6.2 billion to roughly $30 billion, while CoinGecko valued the category near $36.9 billion at the time.

Hoffman sees ZEC drawing from Bitcoin’s pool of capital

Hoffman compared the current ZEC trade with Ethereum’s run in 2021, when ETH moved from a market capitalization near $12 billion at its cycle bottom to roughly $554 billion at its peak.

His thesis does not suggest that Bitcoin holders are abandoning BTC altogether. Instead, Hoffman believes enough holders may be allocating a small part of their portfolios to ZEC as a hedge or complementary position.

Zcash gives that group several narratives to work with. The network shares Bitcoin’s fixed maximum supply of 21 million coins while offering optional transaction privacy through shielded addresses. Concerns over the long term effect of quantum computing on existing cryptographic systems have provided another part of the investment case cited by ZEC supporters.

Institutional access has changed as well. Grayscale converted its Zcash Trust into the ZCSH spot ETF on NYSE Arca on Aug. 25, launching with roughly $304 million in assets under management. ZEC crossed $1,000 in early September as assets in the fund moved above $400 million.

Hoffman argued that ZEC’s dollar gains alone do not explain the trade. He instead pointed to the difference between the size of Bitcoin and Zcash, saying the pool of BTC wealth potentially available for rotation remains far larger than ZEC’s market value.

“There’s $1.7T of BTC out there, and it only takes a very small amount of Bitcoiners to agree that ZEC is valid,” Hoffman wrote.

He said investors could reach that conclusion because of privacy, concerns around quantum computing or simply a desire to hedge their Bitcoin exposure.

The argument remains Hoffman’s interpretation of the source of demand rather than direct evidence tracing ZEC purchases to Bitcoin holders. He acknowledged that point himself, saying he believed few capital allocators would skip BTC, ETH and the rest of the crypto market to buy ZEC solely on its own merits.

NEAR has become the smart contract alternative, Hoffman says

A similar capital rotation may be playing out around NEAR Protocol, according to Hoffman, although he sees the source of that demand as more dispersed.

“I think NEAR has won the ‘smart contract bid’ trophy of 2026,” he wrote.

NEAR was trading around $4.28 on Sept. 24 after gaining more than 60% over the previous seven days, according to CoinGecko. Its rally has come alongside several developments across the network and its trading markets.

On Sept. 23, NEAR spot trading went live on Hyperliquid through a NEAR/USDC market. NEAR perpetual open interest on Hyperliquid stood near $344 million at the time, while positive funding rates showed long positions were paying shorts.

Network development has provided another part of NEAR’s 2026 narrative. The protocol has spent much of the year building around artificial intelligence, chain abstraction and autonomous agents.

In July, NEAR introduced staking based AI payments, allowing users to lock NEAR and receive monthly compute credits for AI services. The system covered 43 AI models at launch and allowed users to access confidential inference and autonomous agents without paying through a credit card.

Hoffman said the capital supporting NEAR is probably coming from a more varied group than the investors he believes are moving from BTC into ZEC.

Ethereum has historically faced more competition among smart contract networks than Bitcoin has faced within the store of value category, he argued. Solana has already challenged Ethereum for users, activity and investor attention, leaving the smart contract market less concentrated around a single asset.

For Hoffman, the difference means NEAR does not need to pull capital from one clearly defined group. Traders looking beyond ETH, SOL and other established smart contract assets could contribute to the same effect.

Bitcoin and Ethereum face what Hoffman calls a blue chip problem

Hoffman framed the moves in ZEC and NEAR as part of a larger issue for the crypto market’s biggest assets.

Investors seeking large multiples may be less willing to allocate new capital to assets that already carry hundreds of billions or more than $1 trillion in market value, he argued. Smaller networks can offer more room for price appreciation if they attract a meaningful portion of existing crypto wealth.

Hoffman called the situation the “Blue Chip Curse.”

Bitcoin still needs to establish itself more firmly as an alternative to gold, in his view, while Ethereum faces the question of what could produce another major revaluation after years of growth.

The comparison comes as the total cryptocurrency market remains much smaller than the traditional financial system. CoinGecko data placed the global crypto market capitalization near $2.96 trillion on Sept. 24, with Bitcoin accounting for roughly 57% of the total.

Hoffman said crypto could continue producing new winners even if BTC and ETH do not deliver the multiples investors saw during earlier cycles. He pointed to Hyperliquid, Venice, Lighter, Ethena and Morpho as examples of projects bringing new products and infrastructure into the industry.

His concern is where the economic value from that activity ultimately ends up.

Hoffman argued that Robinhood, Coinbase, Apollo and traditional brokerage businesses could be positioned to capture part of the value created by the latest generation of crypto products, while the extent to which BTC and ETH benefit remains uncertain.

For the industry’s overall value to move materially higher, Hoffman said total crypto market capitalization would eventually need to grow far beyond its current level. He raised $10 trillion as a level he hopes the market can reach during the current cycle, while contrasting it with a possible $30 trillion market needed for a much larger expansion of the sector.