{"id":9295,"date":"2026-08-16T02:33:33","date_gmt":"2026-08-15T23:33:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/handoli.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/16\/winklevoss-zcash-company-pivots-to-cancer-drug-after-37-8m-loss\/"},"modified":"2026-08-16T02:33:33","modified_gmt":"2026-08-15T23:33:33","slug":"winklevoss-zcash-company-pivots-to-cancer-drug-after-37-8m-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/handoli.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/16\/winklevoss-zcash-company-pivots-to-cancer-drug-after-37-8m-loss\/","title":{"rendered":"Winklevoss\u2019 Zcash company pivots to cancer drug after $37.8M loss"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Winklevoss-backed Zcash (ZEC) treasury company Cypherpunk Technologies has announced plans to pivot focus to its cancer drug candidate after it reported<\/a> a $37.8 million net loss for the first six months of 2026.<\/p>\n

Unless the price of ZEC rallies soon, the company has admitted that it will need to raise a lot of money to pay for its upcoming FDA trials.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe expect to continue to generate operating losses for the foreseeable future,\u201d the company forecasted today.<\/p>\n

Cypherpunk\u2019s ZEC holdings<\/a> are worth roughly $157 million, yet Nasdaq traders value the entire company at just $74 million<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

That is a basic multiple-to-Net Asset Value (mNAV) of just 0.47x and sadly unremarkable as crypto treasury stocks continue to trade for less than their holdings<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Counting pre-funded warrants and other sweeteners for its self-described Enterprise Value mNAV brings that multiple up to 0.96x<\/a> on the company\u2019s homepage \u2014 still less than the value of its ZEC.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Five-year stock chart of Cypherpunk Technologies. Source: TradingView<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Backed by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss<\/h2>\n

Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss are the billionaires who helped create the company\u2019s ZEC brand.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Initially successful, the company was able to acquire its ZEC for a $341.84 average purchase price \u2014 well below the current market for ZEC at $486.<\/p>\n

The stock also hit $3.70 last November before falling back below $0.69 per share today.<\/p>\n

Cypherpunk has lost tens of millions of dollars this year and continues to plan an expensive FDA trial path for its cancer drug. The stock has lost 40% of its value this year and 96% of its value over the past five years<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Gemini, the exchange the Winklevoss twins control<\/a>, is the custodian for the company\u2019s ZEC.<\/p>\n

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Gemini\u2019s 10-K reveals loan loop between exchange and founders<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Read more: Zcash vs Bitcoin debate exposes Naval Ravikant\u2019s conflicts of interest<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

More expensive cancer trials, and ZEC isn\u2019t helping<\/h2>\n

Cypherpunk\u2019s cancer drug candidate, an anti-DKK1 antibody Sirexatamab, failed to beat the control arm<\/strong> on progression-free survival across all patients in the randomized Phase 2 study.<\/p>\n

The company attributes<\/a> that miss to an underpowered final analysis.<\/p>\n

On the DAT side of the business, the price of ZEC is flat year-to-date, so that didn\u2019t help.<\/p>\n

The FDA granted its drug candidate fast track designation in May anyway, a status that speeds up regulatory review. Regulators also agreed on the shape of a roughly 270-patient Phase 3 trial for colorectal cancer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Onsi said<\/a> the company is \u201cconducting a strategic process to determine the best path to advance sirexatamab, whether as an independently financed spin-out company or with a partner who shares our commitment to cancer patients.\u201d<\/p>\n

In plainer terms, its drug candidate needs more money<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Tyler Winklevoss wrote<\/a> at launch that \u201cWe plan to continue accumulating ZEC rapidly so that Cypherpunk owns at least 5% of the total ZEC supply.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nine months later, the company holds<\/a> 323,394 ZEC today, or 1.92% of the circulating supply. <\/p>\n

The company had just $7.6 million in cash and cash equivalents as of June 30, half a billion dollars of accumulated deficits, loss-generating operations, and an expensive path toward FDA approval for an aspirational drug.<\/p>\n

Got a tip? Send us an email securely via\u00a0Protos Leaks<\/em><\/a>. For more informed news and investigations, follow us on\u00a0X<\/a>,\u00a0Bluesky<\/em><\/a>, and\u00a0Google News<\/em><\/a>, or subscribe to our\u00a0YouTube<\/em><\/a>\u00a0channel.<\/em><\/p>\n

The post Winklevoss\u2019 Zcash company pivots to cancer drug after $37.8M loss<\/a> appeared first on Protos<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Winklevoss-backed Zcash (ZEC) treasury company Cypherpunk Technologies has announced plans to pivot focus to its cancer drug candidate after it reported a $37.8 million net loss for the first six months of 2026. Unless the price of ZEC rallies soon, the company has admitted that it will need to raise a lot of money to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9296,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[147],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-invest"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/handoli.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/handoli.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/handoli.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/handoli.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/handoli.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/handoli.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9295\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/handoli.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/handoli.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/handoli.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/handoli.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}