# ZEC and NEAR Are Eating the Blue Chips' Bid *Author: David Hoffman* *Published: Sep 23, 2026* *Source: https://www.bankless.com/read/zec-and-near-are-eating-the-blue-chips-bid* --- # **The Bitcoin Trophy Bid** "How the fuck is ZEC pumping so much?" "Where is this infinite bid coming from?" "How does an asset go from $200M to $26B without being manipulated?" Every once in a while in crypto, a single asset wins the "Bitcoin Bid" trophy. Bitcoiners famously hold their BTC close to their chest. The strength of the Bitcoin community and its narratives have created an extremely strong Schelling point around "BTC and BTC only," and it’s worked. The effect is currently measured at $1.7T. That line almost never breaks. Bitcoiners who defect to another asset are shamed, ridiculed, and ostracized. There is one rule in Bitcoin: no shitcoins. The second rule is that everything other than Bitcoin is a shitcoin. But alas, Bitcoiners are human too. They aren't immune to temptation, envy, or greed. Bitcoiner in the streets, shitcoiner in the sheets. Usually Bitcoiners defect one at a time, and no one notices or cares. But once in a while, enough of them defect toward the same asset that **defection becomes contagious.** This happened to ETH in 2021. It explains why ETH re-rated so violently, from $12B at the bottom to $554B at the top. Listen to this absolute banger from Su Zhu in October 2021: > [ β€” (@) > ](https://twitter.com/TrustlessState/status/2102764770256437554?s=20) "It's at this point now, that I know people who have flown around the world to move their Bitcoin in cold storage to buy Ether If your brand is a Twitter Bitcoin Maximalist, you can't capitulate in public because you'll lose followers, but I'm sure a lot of these people own a lot of ETH in private, actually" - Su Zhu, Oct 2021 # **2026 ZEC Is 2021 ETH** ZEC has created a sufficiently capable schelling point for the Bitcoin Bid. There's $1.7T of BTC out there, and it only takes a very small amount of Bitcoiners to agree that ZEC is valid, either on its own merits (privacy, quantum) or simply as a hedge for their BTC exposure. **So this is why ZEC is up only. **A $26b market cap asset is still pennies compared to a $1.7t one, and ZEC will continue to be up only so long as it convinces just a small percentage of Bitcoiners that they should hold just a little bit of ZEC, "just in case" β€” the same words Bitcoiners use to try and convince the rest of the world that it should own BTC... "just in case." It doesn't matter how much ZEC is up **in dollars.** What matters is the relative size of ZEC to BTC, because its BTC wealth that is driving the bid behind ZEC. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but there are very few capital allocators out there who skipped over BTC, ETH and all the other crypto assets, and are bidding ZEC on its merits alone. # **NEAR Is the New Smart Contract Schelling Point** I believe a similar phenomenon is happening with NEAR. I think NEAR has won the "smart contract bid" trophy of 2026. > [ β€” (@) > ](https://twitter.com/mert/status/2102114026922578230?s=20) The smart contract bid NEAR is wrestling for is obviously weaker than the Bitcoin Bid ZEC is grappling with. In crypto, it has always been store of value first and smart contract chain second. ETH's grip on the smart contract trophy has also always been weaker than BTC's grip on the SoV trophy. SOL threatened ETH more than anything has ever threatened BTC. And Ethereum has always had a looser, more tolerant, more pluralist culture than Bitcoin's maximalists allow. So NEAR is likely drawing its bid from a more diffuse group of market participants than ZEC draws from Bitcoiners. But nonetheless, the effect is the same. Fewer people want to buy the large blue chips, simply because the returns aren't there. Both also carry too much tech debt and look technologically behind in 2026. # **The Blue Chip Curse** Unfortunately, this dynamic leaves the crypto industry with a problem: **someone still needs to buy the blue chips.** Bitcoin needs to evolve beyond a volatile digital currency into a full-fledged gold alternative. Lately it doesn't look like BTC has been filling that role, and for all its shortcomings, gold is still gold. And who's going to buy ETH after Tom Lee? I still don't see the evidence or narrative that would re-rate it 10x. How does our industry progress if #1 and #2 don't 10x from here? It will progress, certainly. Hyperliquid, Venice, Lighter, Ethena, and Morpho have all brought incredible innovation. But unless total crypto market cap goes from $3T to $30T, the value these startups create will likely be captured outside crypto rather than by our native blue chips. Robinhood, Coinbase, Apollo, and traditional brokerages look far better positioned than BTC and ETH to capture the upside from this latest cohort. It's debatable whether BTC and ETH capture any meaningful value from them at all. If this dynamic remains, we may always get new winners, but the total aggregate size of the industry will remain more niche than the aspirations we once had. Hopefully I am just impatient, and the total crypto market cap does truly break $10t this cycle! **Zillions****!** --- *This article is brought to you by [NEAR](https://www.bankless.com/sponsor/near-1785257427?ref=read/zec-and-near-are-eating-the-blue-chips-bid)*