It’s not every day you see a Wall Street veteran go on live television and gently question the foundations of a multi-trillion dollar asset his own firm sells. But that’s what happened last Friday.
- VanEck CEO Jan van Eck publicly questioned the long-term viability of Bitcoin’s core technology, specifically focusing on its encryption and privacy features. He suggested that his firm would abandon Bitcoin if its fundamental thesis proved broken.
- Van Eck highlighted that Bitcoin’s transparent, open ledger clashes with modern expectations of financial confidentiality, noting that some holders are exploring more private alternatives like Zcash. This commentary caused Zcash’s value to surge significantly.
- Concerns about quantum computing breaking current cryptography, as echoed by figures like Vitalik Buterin, add another layer of existential threat to Bitcoin’s security model. This has created a cultural rift between those who see Bitcoin as immutable and those who see risks in its current structure.
Jan van Eck, the CEO of investment giant VanEck, sat down with CNBC’s Brian Sullivan and did just that. He looked into the camera and suggested Bitcoin might have a problem. Two problems, actually. Encryption and privacy.
“There’s something else going on within the Bitcoin community that non-crypto people need to know about,” he said. The comment hung in the air, a world away from the usual price chatter.
This wasn’t a prediction about a weekend dip. It was a public meditation on whether Bitcoin’s core technology is built to last. VanEck, he reminded the audience, has been around longer than Bitcoin. And it will be around after, if need be.
“We will walk away from Bitcoin if we think the thesis is fundamentally broken,” he stated plainly. “We don’t right now, but you always have to look at the underlying technology and the crypto.”
He didn’t spell out “the Bitcoin thesis” in full. He didn’t have to. His focus was sharp, aimed at two questions he said are now central to parts of the Bitcoin community. Does it have “enough encryption?” And does it have “enough privacy?”
For a man whose firm championed one of the first spot Bitcoin ETFs, this was like a master chef questioning the quality of his own flour. It got people’s attention.
Van Eck pointed to Bitcoin’s open ledger. It’s a feature, not a bug, allowing anyone to verify transactions. But in a world growing more concerned with digital privacy, it can feel like a liability. “When you move money around on the Bitcoin blockchain, you can see it,” he said. “You can see it move from one wallet to another.”
This transparency, he argued, clashes with what many users expect from their money. Confidentiality. He then mentioned that some longtime Bitcoin holders, even self-described maxis, have started looking at Zcash. He called it “sort of related to Bitcoin with a lot more privacy.”
The market heard him loud and clear. Zcash’s ZEC token took off. By Sunday, ZEC was the 13th largest cryptocurrency, with a market cap of $9.43 billion. It traded around $578, up more than 900% for the year. Just two months prior, it was hovering near $55.
After the interview, van Eck doubled down on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. He posted a summary of his views, tying the current bear market to the “onchain reality of the halving cycle (bearish for 2026), quantum-breaking-encryption concerns and the better privacy of Zcash.”
The Quantum Shadow
Van Eck isn’t a lone voice in the wilderness. His concerns about encryption, particularly the threat from quantum computing, echo warnings from some of the brightest minds in technology.
Quantum computers are a new type of machine. They don’t think in ones and zeroes. They work in a strange world of quantum mechanics that allows them to solve certain problems exponentially faster than any classical computer ever could. One of those problems is factoring large numbers, the mathematical bedrock of modern cryptography.
On November 17, just days before van Eck’s interview, Ethereum co-creator Vitalik Buterin gave a presentation in Argentina. He warned that the rise of quantum computing poses a direct threat to the math that secures both Bitcoin and Ethereum. “Elliptic curves are going to die,” he said, referring to the specific type of cryptography used.
This isn’t science fiction. Scott Aaronson, a leading quantum computing researcher at the University of Texas at Austin, wrote about the timeline in a recent blog post. He said that “given the current staggering rate of hardware progress,” it is “a live possibility” that a quantum computer capable of cracking today’s encryption could be built before the next U.S. presidential election in 2028.
Think of it like this. The world’s digital vaults are all locked with a certain kind of complex puzzle. For decades, we’ve been sure no computer could solve it. Now, a new kind of thinker is emerging, one that sees the puzzle in a completely different way and might solve it in an afternoon.
Bitcoin was trading around $86,204 on Sunday. That’s down over 31% from its all-time high in October. The price drop reflects many factors, but these foundational questions are now part of the mix.
A Line in the Sand
Of course, not everyone appreciated a Wall Street CEO airing Bitcoin’s potential dirty laundry. The pushback was swift and sharp, especially from Bitcoin’s most ardent defenders.
Samson Mow, CEO of JAN3 and a prominent early advocate for Bitcoin, took direct aim at van Eck. He rejected the idea that true Bitcoin believers, or “maxis,” were flocking to privacy coins like Zcash.
In a post on X, Mow was blunt. “You wouldn’t be able to point out a Bitcoin Maxi even if they were standing in front of you,” he wrote. “You shouldn’t be speaking on anything Bitcoin whatsoever. You’re a crypto guy, stay in your lane and push the latest shitcoin narrative.”
The comment highlights a deep cultural rift. To Mow and others, Bitcoin is a finished protocol, a perfect form of money whose core principles are non-negotiable. From this view, people like van Eck are outsiders, “crypto guys” who treat Bitcoin as just another asset in a portfolio of speculative tokens.
They see discussions about changing Bitcoin’s privacy model or encryption as a misunderstanding of its purpose. Bitcoin’s transparency is a strength, they argue, providing perfect auditability. The quantum threat is something to be addressed with future upgrades, not a reason to abandon the ship.
So, who is right? Is Jan van Eck raising a valid alarm about Bitcoin’s future, or is he just a tourist in a world he doesn’t fully grasp?
The truth is, these questions are no longer confined to academic papers and developer forums. They are being asked on CNBC, debated by CEOs, and priced into the market. The conversation has changed. And it may not change back.
