The Grayscale Zcash ETF (ticker ZCSH) has climbed more than 60% over the past month and is up roughly 253% year to date.

Renewed market focus on the privacy narrative and speculative capital rotating out of AI plays and into this product have driven the sharp rally.

Zcash's native token ZEC has gained more than 170% this year, while Bitcoin's price has been essentially flat over the same period.

Zcash is designed to make users' financial transactions completely private.

The coin launched in 2016, but the privacy narrative later faded — privacy coins create compliance headaches for regulators and exchanges.

Mainstream crypto investment has become increasingly institutionalized and transparent, while at the same time artificial intelligence has greatly strengthened the capacity for large-scale financial surveillance and transaction analysis.

Those two forces combined have brought the privacy theme back into market favor and paved the way for the Grayscale Zcash ETF to officially list and begin trading in August.

By comparison, the popular spot Bitcoin ETF IBIT is down about 1% this year, and BITW, which tracks the top ten cryptocurrencies, has fallen 5%.

The S&P 500 ETF (VOO) is up 12%, while the Nasdaq 100 ETF (QQQ) has gained nearly 22%.