Grayscale Files to Split Zcash ETF Three-for-One After $233 Million Inflows
Record-date shareholders get two extra shares each under the plan, which lowers the entry price as ZEC's 2,800% rally pushes the fund's per-share cost beyond what many retail buyers will pay.
Illustration · generated, not a photograph
Grayscale has filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for a 3-for-1 forward share split of its Zcash ETF, a move that lowers the price of a single share as inflows into the fund top $233 million in less than a month of trading.
Under the filing, shareholders of record at the close of trading on Sept. 28 will receive two additional shares for each one held, with distribution after market close on Sept. 29. Split-adjusted trading begins at the open on Sept. 30, still under the ticker ZCSH and with the same CUSIP identifier.
A forward split slices each existing share into smaller pieces without altering the total value of a holder's position. Grayscale's filing illustrates the mechanics: 10 shares at $300 each become 30 shares at $100 each, leaving the overall holding unchanged at $3,000. The fund's net asset value per share is expected to fall to roughly one-third of its pre-split level, according to the document.
The rationale is accessibility. Zcash's token, ZEC, has climbed more than 2,800% over the past year, and while crypto exchanges sell fractional amounts of a token, most brokerages will not sell a fraction of a listed share. Splitting the fund brings the per-share price back into range for smaller accounts.
"The Forward Split is expected to decrease the price per share of the Fund with a proportionate increase in the number of Shares outstanding," Grayscale wrote in the filing. "Immediately following the Forward Split, the NAV per Share is expected to be approximately one-third of the NAV per Share immediately before the Forward Split."
Money keeps flowing in
The split lands after an unusually strong debut month. ZCSH has attracted more than $233 million since it began trading on Aug. 25, per Decrypt's reporting, including a single-day haul of $112 million on Sept. 8 and $46.6 million earlier this week. Net assets stood near $890 million as of Sept. 17.
ZCSH is the first spot exchange-traded fund to hold ZEC directly. It launched through the conversion of Grayscale's existing Zcash Trust, which carried roughly $313 million in the token when it listed on NYSE Arca.
Zcash is a privacy-focused cryptocurrency that lets users choose between transparent and shielded transactions. Its underlying technology, zk-SNARKs, allows a payment to be verified as valid without revealing the sender, the recipient or the amount. The supply is capped at 21 million coins, matching Bitcoin's limit.
Demand for that privacy has grown alongside concerns over how easily digital payments can be traced, and ZEC has surged this year on the back of it. Wrapping the asset in a regulated ETF makes it reachable through standard brokerage accounts rather than only self-custody crypto wallets. Zcash also carries less regulatory baggage than rivals such as Monero, which major exchanges have delisted following law-enforcement pressure.
Grayscale has used the same playbook before. In December 2020, it split its Ethereum Trust 9-for-1 after Ether's rally had priced out smaller investors, and it is now applying the remedy to ZCSH for the same reason.
Source reporting
The outlets whose reporting this account was written from.
Also reported by
Independent coverage of the same event.
Written from the reporting and primary documents credited at the foot of this story. Facts are credited to the outlet or document that established them. How Chainpress works