Zcash co-founder Eli Ben-Sasson has backed Shielded Bitcoin, a proposal that adds private transfers to Bitcoin’s base layer. He also says Zcash (ZEC) is on track to hit his $5,000 year-end target.

Ben-Sasson, who also co-founded StarkWare, co-wrote the Zerocash paper that preceded Zcash. His original goal, he says, was to bring that privacy to Bitcoin.

Research firm Alloc Init published the proposal on September 24. Its authors are Misha Komarov, Aleksei Moskvin, and Clara Shikhelma.

According to the whitepaper , the design combines encrypted notes, public nullifiers, and zero-knowledge (ZK) proofs. Nullifiers stop the same hidden coins from being spent twice. It needs no soft fork, BitVM, or consensus change. Instead, it relies on Bitcoin PIPEs, a tool built on witness encryption. As a result, all protocol data lives on Bitcoin itself, the team says.

That matters because standard Bitcoin payments stay visible on-chain and can reveal sensitive business payment details to outsiders.

Ben-Sasson admits he has not read the paper yet. Still, he welcomed the direction and hopes to see ZK privacy and scaling reach Bitcoin’s base layer.

On September 9, Ben-Sasson predicted ZEC would trade above $1,200 by September 25. That call has held. ZEC now trades at $1,545.89, up 1.44% in 24 hours. It has gained nearly 291% over 90 days. The token ranks ninth by market capitalization.

Reaching $5,000 would still require a gain of roughly 223%. Meanwhile, he says more whales now ask him what drives the rally. He admits he has no answer and has asked followers for theirs.