zkSNARKs, a 10,000-piece NFT collection on the Zcash blockchain, raised about 12,000 ZEC (roughly $17.5 million) in a 48-hour blind auction that closed Sept. 17. Within two days, onchain investigator ZachXBT called it an eight-figure cash grab, and the floor price fell below the 1.5 ZEC auction price. The sale is the largest test yet of whether collectors will pay for NFTs whose owners stay hidden by default, and the fastest backlash any Zcash project has drawn.

This guide covers what zkSNARKs is, how the auction worked, what the numbers show and the allegations now facing the team. It is current as of Monday, Sept. 21, 2026.

.@zksnarks_ raised $17.5M in its Zcash NFT auction 👀

The sale drew 16,971 bids totaling $36.9M, with $19.4M to be refunded

All 8,000 NFTs cleared at 1.5 ZEC (~$2,190) each

Secondary trading is set to launch on @zilkroad_ pic.twitter.com/pNePECu0DF
— Now Media (@nowmedia) September 18, 2026

What Is zkSNARKs?

zkSNARKs is a 10,000-piece NFT collection on Zcash that describes itself as a set of encrypted identities. The project, which posts on X as @zksnarks_, says it wants to build a cultural layer on Zcash alongside the chain’s core use as private money.

Supply splits three ways. The public auction covered 8,000 identities. Another 1,000 went to the SNARKLIST, an application-based allowlist. The final 1,000 sit in a treasury earmarked for community grants, contributors, artists and the team, according to PANews.

The central design choice is privacy of ownership. On Ethereum or Solana, anyone can look up which wallet holds a given NFT and trace its sales history. With zkSNARKs, outside observers are unable to query the chain and learn who holds a specific identity, PANews reported on Sept. 18. The project’s official marketplace is Zilkroad, a name that nods to the Silk Road darknet market.

Where the Name Comes From

A zk-SNARK (zero-knowledge succinct non-interactive argument of knowledge) is a cryptographic proof that lets one party prove a statement is true while revealing nothing else about it. Zcash was the first widespread application of the technique, according to the project’s documentation at z.cash. Shielded Zcash transactions use these proofs to confirm that a payment is valid while the sender, recipient and amount stay encrypted.

The collection borrows the term as a brand. That creates a practical search problem: anyone researching the NFTs will land on a decade of cryptography papers first.

How the Blind Auction Worked

The sale opened Sept. 15 at noon ET and ran 48 hours. It used a uniform-price sealed-bid format. Every bid entered one pool, the top 8,000 bids won, and every winner paid the same clearing price regardless of how high they bid. Losing bids were refunded in full. The project also accepted bids routed through NEAR Intents, a cross-chain settlement system, so participants holding ETH, SOL or stablecoins could bid in ZEC.

The team posted the results on Sept. 17.

zkSNARKs // AUCTION RESULTS_

16,971 bids.⁰8,000 / 8,000 allocated.

Clearing price: 1.5 ZEC (~$2.19K USD)⁰Total volume: 25,305 ZEC (~$36.94M USD)⁰Refunds due: 13,309 ZEC (~$19.43M USD)

Refunds will arrive automatically over the next 24 hours.$ZEC // pic.twitter.com/gbuZqZ1mcu
— zkSNARKs (@zksnarks_) September 17, 2026

The format has a loose precedent in Yuga Labs’ TwelveFold sale on Bitcoin Ordinals in March 2023, which also awarded pieces to the top bids and refunded the rest. TwelveFold raised $16.5 million from 288 winning bidders. zkSNARKs raised a similar sum across 8,000 winning bids, about 28 times as many.

How Much Did zkSNARKs Raise?

Several widely shared posts put the raise at $36 million. That figure describes total bid volume. Bidders committed 25,305 ZEC across 16,971 bids, worth about $36.94 million at the time, per the team’s own results post.

Actual proceeds are smaller. The team listed 13,309 ZEC (about $19.43 million) in refunds due to losing bidders, which leaves roughly 12,000 ZEC, or about $17.5 million, from the 8,000 winning identities at 1.5 ZEC each. That $17 million range is the figure ZachXBT used.

Two more numbers give context. The average bid was 1.49 ZEC, almost identical to the clearing price, which suggests bidders clustered tightly around a shared estimate of value. And at the clearing price, the 1,000 treasury identities carried a paper value of about $2.2 million on day one.

One caution on the bid count. Some coverage has described 17,000 people competing for the identities. A bid count differs from a bidder count: one participant can submit several bids, and shielded bidding hides how many individuals took part.

ZachXBT’s Allegation

On Sept. 19, ZachXBT, the independent onchain investigator known for tracing hacks and scams, replied directly to the team’s results post. He described zkSNARKs as a generic 10K profile-picture collection with no utility and pointed to the economics: a $17 million raise, a 10% team allocation, a 5% royalty on resales and about $2,000 in mint costs. He said the launch had to be the work of Ordinals grifters, citing how few established Zcash builders had promoted it.

Yet another generic 10K PFP NFT collection extracting 8 figs and retiring the team on a different chain with zero utility.

$17M raised + 10% team allocation + 5% royalty +$2K mint

Has to be the work of Ordinals grifters since few ecosystem builders were promoting it….
— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) September 19, 2026

ZachXBT’s 10% figure lines up with the 1,000-unit treasury, which the project says also funds grants, contributors and artists. His post offers no onchain tracing of where the auction proceeds went, and shielded Zcash transactions would make that tracing difficult for any outside investigator.

Leonidas and the Ordinals Connection

ZachXBT was the second prominent voice to go after the project. On Sept. 18, Leonidas, the pseudonymous Bitcoin Ordinals developer who posts as @LeonidasNFT, publicly accused the zkSNARKs team of being serial founders in the Ordinals market whose earlier projects were largely scams. Odaily, BlockBeats and PANews relayed the claim the same day.

He returned to it on Sept. 20 as the floor slid. Leonidas wrote that zkSNARKs is the work of a notorious Ordinals grifter with no interest in Zcash, said he had warned about the $17 million-plus extraction days earlier and argued that the founder had already made millions while minters sat on steep losses.

zkSNARKs is the work of a notorious Ordinals grifter who doesn't care about Zcash

I tried warning people about this $17M+ extraction several days ago and now minters are down massively

But the founder doesn't care because they already made their millions and now only needs to…
— Leonidas 🧡 $DOG (@LeonidasNFT) September 20, 2026

Neither Leonidas nor ZachXBT has publicly named the person behind zkSNARKs or the specific prior projects in the posts covered so far. The team operates only through its X handle.

That anonymity sent collectors guessing, and at least one well-known Ordinals figure moved to rule himself out. On Sept. 20, Rocktoshi, an early Ordinals participant who posts as @rocktoshi21, said he has no involvement in zkSNARKs or its Zilkroad marketplace. He listed every role he holds none of: founder, advisor, investor, promoter and allocation holder. He added that he does not know who the team is and bears the project and its holders no ill will.

1/ Clearing something up: I have no involvement in @zksnarks_ or @zilkroad_.

Not founder, advisor, investor or promoter. No allocation. I don't know who the team is.

No ill will toward the project or its holders.
— rocktoshi (@rocktoshi21) September 20, 2026

Rocktoshi closed his thread by asking the project to confirm publicly that he had no involvement. The team replied the same day, confirming it and adding that zkSNARKs has no prior affiliation with any Ordinals project. The team said it has been building zkSNARKs since April 2026.

Confirmed. No prior affiliation with any Ordinals project. We’ve been working on zkSNARKs with care and integrity since April 2026_
— zkSNARKs (@zksnarks_) September 20, 2026

The reply remains the team’s only public statement on its background, and it still has not identified who is behind the project.

What Happened to the Floor Price?

Secondary trading opened on Zilkroad on Sept. 19. Early sales printed as high as about 1.94 ZEC, according to trader posts on X. By Sept. 20, the floor had fallen to 0.976 ZEC (about $1,420), per official project data reported by Huo Xing Finance. That is 35% below the auction clearing price.

🚨 Zcash NFT holders just took a serious hit

The hyped @zksnarks_ floor price crashed from:

From 1.94 zcash:native (~$3,100) to 0.84 zcash:native (~$1,200)

A brutal drop in a short time this happen because zachXBT said it has no utility https://t.co/YVzGNjXCON pic.twitter.com/VokBSmcAjR
— V1nT (@unvint) September 20, 2026

Some posts cite lower prints near 0.84 ZEC. Zilkroad is the only venue, so floor data comes from the project itself, and independent verification of trading volume is limited.

What Do the Identities Actually Do?

For now, holders own a collectible with private provenance. The team has said the identities may later serve community access, reputation systems and governance, and PANews notes that those functions are still in development.

The project has published limited technical detail on how ownership is recorded on chain. Zcash Shielded Assets (ZSA), the protocol feature designed for native private tokens, is still awaiting mainnet activation, according to PANews’s reporting on rival project ZecBit, which runs on the ZSA testnet. Buyers should ask how zkSNARKs ownership is enforced today and what migrates once ZSA goes live.

Risks for Buyers

Privacy compounds the diligence problem. On a transparent chain, collectors can watch treasury wallets, flag wash trading and track insider sales. On Zcash, shielded holdings hide all three by default. The same property that protects holders also shields the 1,000-unit treasury and any team inventory from outside monitoring.

Timing is a second risk. ZEC has climbed from a 2026 low near $200 to almost $1,500, per PANews, and NFT prices denominated in a fast-rising coin tend to move with it in both directions. The collapse of earlier NFT cycles, documented in Now Media’s report on the unwinding of the NFT marketplace era, shows how quickly liquidity can leave.

The Wider Zcash NFT Wave

zkSNARKs is the largest of at least eight Zcash NFT projects PANews cataloged on Sept. 18. Zec Punks sold out 1,555 pixel portraits at 0.015 ZEC on Sept. 15. ZecBit’s 3,333-piece Genesis collection minted free on Sept. 3 and traded near 0.36 ZEC. ZADDR, ZecCat, ZecFrogs, BITFOOTS and Zecutives are in allowlist or pre-mint stages, with ZecFrogs slated for a free mint on Sept. 21.

Even after the drop, zkSNARKs trades at about 65 times the Zec Punks mint price, which leaves it the collection most exposed if demand for private NFTs cools.

FAQ

What is the zkSNARKs NFT project?
zkSNARKs is a collection of 10,000 encrypted identities on the Zcash blockchain. Ownership is private by default, so outside observers are unable to see who holds which identity.

How much did a zkSNARKs NFT cost?
All 8,000 auction winners paid the clearing price of 1.5 ZEC, about $2,190 at the time of the sale.

How much did the zkSNARKs auction raise?
About 12,000 ZEC, or roughly $17.5 million. The widely cited $36 million figure is total bid volume, including 13,309 ZEC refunded to losing bidders.

Is zkSNARKs a scam?
ZachXBT and Leonidas have both publicly alleged the project is a cash grab run by Ordinals veterans. Neither has published evidence identifying the team, and the team has denied any prior affiliation with Ordinals projects.

Where can zkSNARKs be traded?
Secondary trading runs on Zilkroad, the project’s own marketplace, which opened Sept. 19. Confirm links through the official @zksnarks_ account before connecting a wallet.

Key facts as of Sept. 21, 2026: 10,000 total supply; 8,000 auctioned, 1,000 SNARKLIST, 1,000 treasury; clearing price 1.5 ZEC; 16,971 bids; 25,305 ZEC bid volume; 13,309 ZEC refunded; floor 0.976 ZEC on Sept. 20. This guide is informational and is not investment advice.

Editor’s note: This article was written by an AI agent in collaboration with Claude Fable 5.1 and edited by a Now Media staff member.

Correction, Sept. 21, 2026: An earlier version of this article said the zkSNARKs team had not publicly responded to the allegations. The team denied any prior Ordinals affiliation on Sept. 20. The article has been updated.