ZEC-paired memecoins: ZCAT Copycats Drop as Zcash Slides 16.7%
ZEC-paired memecoins are the new copycat meta, and many copies are down 58% to 89%. ZCAT still pays holders in Zcash, but ZEC itself fell 16.7% on the week.
Early story. Some claims here are not officially confirmed yet. We update this post as it confirms.
- ZCAT, or Anonymous Cat, trades against ZEC instead of SOL and turns a 3% transfer tax into ZEC paid to holders with at least $20 of the token.
- CoinDesk and AirdropAlert both report about 2,320 ZEC, roughly $2.8 million at the time, paid out in ZCAT's first week across more than 470,000 payouts.
- The catch is ZEC itself. It fell 16.7% on the week in AMBCrypto's review, and on October 8 Kraken had it near $1,238, down from a $1,327 open.
in this block
ZEC-paired memecoins are the newest copy-paste meta, and the copies are already bleeding. U.Today's October 7 meme digest says Zcash-paired and stock-paired launches are spreading across Solana and BNB Chain, with several copycats down 58% to 89%, while the original, ZCAT, still trades on real volume.
What actually happened
The trend started with Anonymous Cat on StonkFun, the Solana launchpad. Instead of pairing the token with SOL, ZCAT trades directly against ZEC. Every buy, sell or wallet transfer pays a 3% tax that is converted into ZEC and pushed to holders automatically.
CoinDesk covered the payout run in early September, when ZEC was above $1,200. It reported about 2,320 ZEC distributed, citing the project's dashboard. AirdropAlert adds that ZCAT peaked near a $170 million market cap on September 7, and points out that the mechanic copies earlier stock-reward memes.
Now everyone wants a piece. U.Today lists SAPLING on Solana and MOMO and SHIELD on BNB Chain as ZEC-paired copies. In its October 7 snapshot, ZCAT was up 33.8% on $5.2 million in daily volume, while the broader meme market was red.
Why ZEC-paired memecoins are a double bet
When you buy one of these tokens, you are long two things at once: the meme and Zcash. Payouts arrive in ZEC, so their dollar value moves with the privacy coin. If ZEC rallies, the rewards look amazing, which is exactly what happened in September.
The reverse is also true. On Kraken at 05:59 UTC on October 8, ZEC last traded at $1,238.48, against a 24-hour open of $1,327.24 and a low of $1,228. Add the 16.7% weekly drop cited by U.Today and the reward stream is shrinking in dollar terms.
Rewards also depend on activity. A 3% tax only pays out when tokens move. If volume dries up, the "passive income" turns into a trickle. That is the core weakness of every tax-and-redistribute meme, ZEC-paired memecoins included.
AirdropAlert flagged the usual memecoin warnings for ZCAT early on, too: an anonymous deployer and daily swings of 30% or more, even though mint, freeze and metadata authorities were revoked. Revoked authorities are a real check, but they do not stop a price from falling.
The wider meme tape
The timing is rough. U.Today says 17 of 18 DexScreener categories lost market cap in 24 hours, with political memes the only gainer at +1.05% to $5.96 billion. Solana led chain volume at $3.17 billion, ahead of BNB Chain at $1.97 billion and Base at $1.10 billion.
Bitcoin was near $86,300 in that snapshot and CoinGecko's Fear and Greed reading sat at 40. Since then BTC has slid below $83,000, per CoinDesk. Fear plus falling volume is not where copycats usually thrive.
Pairing with a "real" asset has not been a shield either. U.Today notes that stock-paired tokens on Robinhood Chain, including Binance Inu paired with NVDA and SpaceX Inu paired with SpaceX exposure, also posted steep drops. The pair changes what you are exposed to. It does not make a meme safe.
What Polymarket thinks
There is no market on ZCAT itself, but there is one on its reward asset. On the Polymarket Zcash price market, "↑ 2000" was at 37.15% at 06:10 UTC on October 8, down about 15 points on the week. On the downside, "↓ 700" sat at 26.5% and "↓ 500" at 12%.
That ladder is the hidden variable for every ZEC-paired token. The odds of ZEC doubling this year have cooled fast, and the payouts follow ZEC, not the cat.
What to do as a reader
If you look at ZEC-paired memecoins, start with the boring checks. Is the contract the original or a copy? Are mint and freeze authorities revoked? How concentrated is the top-ten wallet list, and is there real liquidity in the pool?
Then do the math on rewards. Your share depends on total volume, the tax rate and the ZEC price, so past payouts do not predict future ones. Copycats with no volume pay almost nothing.
Our StonkFun holder rewards explainer covers the launchpad mechanics, and our memecoin altcoin share piece shows how fast meme attention rotates. This is not investment advice. Treat the yield as a bonus, never as the reason to buy.
Not financial advice. DYOR, ser.
