Zcash (ZEC) Surges, Leap Therapeutics (LPTX) Jumps on Winklevoss-Backed Digital Asset Treasury

Former oncology biotech firm Leap Therapeutics (LPTX), which earlier this month raised $58.9 million in funding led by Winklevoss Capital to pivot to a digital treasury firm, announced the purchase of $50 million of Zcash ZEC$454.92.

Alongside, the company is rebranding as Cypherpunk Technologies and will begin trading Thursday with new ticker CYPH, read a Wednesday press release.

About the only crypto that has risen in value in the past weeks, ZEC has more than doubled since the Leap buys, up another 12.2% over the past 24 hours to $523.

LPTX shares rose 369% on Wednesday after news of the profitable investment.

Digital asset treasuries pursue a strategy to raise funds by selling equity and debt to accumulate cryptocurrencies, a playbook pioneered by Michael Saylor’s Strategy (MSTR) with bitcoin. They became ubiquitous this year with dozens of public firms announcing a pivot, but the frenzy has considerably cooled off over the past months as their share prices tumbled in many cases below the net asset value of their digital asset holdings.

“The recent weak performance of digital asset treasury companies stems from PIPEs dominated by short-term, mercenary capital,” Will McEvoy, chief investment officer of Cypherpunk said in a statement. “We’ve taken a different path by building a syndicate of value-aligned investors who believe in the long-term importance of Zcash and privacy for the United States and the world.”

Zcash is designed to offer users greater privacy than mainstream cryptocurrencies like bitcoin BTC$101,757.86. Cypherpunk’s executives viewed ZEC as a hedge against surveillance-driven financial systems.