Bitcoin’s long-term design came under new scrutiny Friday after VanEck CEO Jan van Eck questioned whether the network offered enough encryption and privacy during an appearance on CNBC’s “Power Lunch” with anchor Brian Sullivan.
Van Eck said the issues attracting attention within the Bitcoin community go beyond short-term market fluctuations. “There’s something else going on in the Bitcoin community that non-crypto people need to know about,” he said.
He added that VanEck evaluates the sustainability of Bitcoin the same way he evaluates traditional assets. “Ultimately, VanEck existed before Bitcoin. We will move away from Bitcoin if we think the thesis is fundamentally broken. That’s not the case at the moment, but you always have to look at the underlying technology and cryptography.”
He did not define what he meant by “the Bitcoin thesis,” but his comments highlighted the foundations that support Bitcoin’s long-term viability, including the strength of its cryptography, the network’s readiness for advances in quantum computing, and whether its privacy model aligns with user expectations. His remarks focused on whether Bitcoin had “enough encryption” and “enough privacy”, which he said were now central questions for parts of the Bitcoin community.
Van Eck also said that some long-time Bitcoin holders and self-proclaimed maxis have started looking into Zcash, calling it “kind of related to Bitcoin with a lot more privacy.” He argued that Bitcoin’s transparent ledger may conflict with growing expectations for transaction privacy. “When you move money on the Bitcoin blockchain, you can see it,” he said. “You can see it moving from one portfolio to another.”
Following the interview, van Eck posted a summary on He also amplified VanEck portfolio manager Pranav Kanade’s advice to “dollar cost average in bear markets.”
Bitcoin was trading around $84,643 during the CNBC interview. As of 9:15 UTC on Sunday, November 23, the price was at $86,204, up 2.4% in the past 24 hours but down 7.7% year-to-date and 31.6% below its October 6, 2025 all-time high of $126,080.
Industry reaction
Some voices within the broader cryptography and research community have echoed van Eck’s concerns.
On November 17, during a presentation on the Ethereum roadmap at the Devconnect conference in Argentina, Ethereum co-creator Vitalik Buterin warned that quantum computing could threaten elliptic curve cryptography, saying, “Elliptic curves are going to die.”
Separately, in a November 13 blog post, quantum computing researcher Scott Aaronson – Schlumberger Centennial Professor of Computer Science at the University of Texas at Austin – wrote that “given the current staggering pace of hardware progress,” it is “possible” 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 to van Eck’s remarks. For example, Samson Mow, CEO of JAN3 and an early advocate of Bitcoin, rejected the idea that Bitcoin maxis are moving toward privacy alternatives. In an article on
Zcash’s ZEC token has soared as privacy discussions intensify. ZEC is now the 13th most valuable cryptocurrency with a market cap of $9.43 billion and was recently trading at $578.35, up 17.3% in the last 24 hours, 121.3% in the last 30 days, and 930% year to date. On September 24, ZEC was trading near $55.06.
Read more: “Inside Zcash: Crypto Money on a Global Scale”
Van Eck’s comments, alongside the broader debate over encryption, privacy and quantum readiness, suggest that the conversation around Bitcoin’s long-term architecture is likely to intensify as the market heads towards 2026 and traders reevaluate the role of the halving in the current downturn.
