Van Eck stated the issues drawing attention inside the Bitcoin community go beyond short-term market swings.
Bitcoin News
VanEck CEO Jan van Eck questioned whether Bitcoin provides sufficient encryption and privacy during a CNBC appearance Friday, stating the asset manager could walk away from Bitcoin if fundamental concerns prove valid.
Van Eck stated the issues drawing attention inside the Bitcoin community go beyond short-term market swings. "There's something else going on within the Bitcoin community that non-crypto people need to know about," he said during the "Power Lunch" segment with anchor Brian Sullivan.
He added that VanEck evaluates Bitcoin's staying power the same way it assesses traditional assets. "Ultimately, VanEck has been around before BTC. We will walk away from BTC if we think the thesis is fundamentally broken. We don't right now, but you always have to look at the underlying technology and the crypto."
Van Eck's remarks centered on whether BTC has "enough encryption" and "enough privacy," which he said were now central questions for parts of the BTC community. He also stated some longtime holders and self-described maxis have begun examining Zcash, calling it "sort of related to BTC with a lot more privacy."
He argued that Bitcoin's transparent ledger can clash with rising expectations around transaction confidentiality. "When you move money around on the Bitcoin blockchain, you can see it," van Eck stated. "You can see it move from one wallet to another."
Following the interview, Van Eck posted on X asserting the current bear market reflects "the on-chain reality of the halving cycle, quantum-breaking-encryption concerns and the better privacy of Zcash." He amplified VanEck portfolio manager Pranav Kanade's guidance to "dollar cost average into bear markets."
Some voices in the broader crypto and research community echoed van Eck's concerns. Ethereum co-creator Vitalik Buterin warned during a Nov. 17 presentation at the Devconnect conference in Argentina that quantum computing could threaten elliptic curve cryptography, stating, "Elliptic curves are going to die."
Quantum computing researcher Scott Aaronson wrote in a Nov. 13 blog post that given the current rate of hardware progress, it is "a live possibility" that a fault-tolerant quantum computer capable of running Shor's algorithm could be built before the next U.S. presidential election in 2028. Others responded forcefully against van Eck's remarks, with Jan3 CEO Samson Mow rejecting the idea that Bitcoin maxis are turning to privacy alternatives.
Bitcoin was trading around $84,643 during the CNBC interview. As of 9:15 a.m. UTC on Sunday, the price was $86,204, up 2.4% in 24 hours but down 7.7% year-to-date and 31.6% below its record high of $126,080 on Oct. 6.
Zcash has surged as privacy discussions intensify, now ranking as the 13th-most valuable cryptocurrency with a market cap of $9.43 billion, trading at $548.35, up 17.3% in 24 hours, 121.3% over 30 days and 930% year to date. Van Eck's comments suggest the conversation around Bitcoin's long-term architecture will intensify as the market heads into 2026 and traders reassess encryption readiness and privacy models.
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