Gemini, the New York based exchange owned by the Winklevoss twins, will become the first ever licensed ZCash exchange starting next week when the firm begins offering ZCash trading. According to a blog post made on Gemini’s official site, Gemini customers can begin depositing ZCash they own into the exchange’s wallets on Saturday, May 19th at 9:30AM EDT. Trading kicks off a few days later on Tuesday, May 22nd at 9:30AM EDT. At that time, trading will go live with ZEC/USD, ZEC/BTC, and ZEC/ETH trading pairs.

In addition to ZCash, Gemini also received approval from the New York Department of Financial Services, who oversees New York’s controversial Bitlicense, to also list Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash. However, ZCash being listed is of particular interest, due to its privacy centric nature.

Privacy coins have been a point of controversy in the cryptocurrency market, with many fearful to invest due to regulators potentially cracking down or outright banning privacy coins like ZCash and Monero due to their possible use by criminals to launder money, among other crimes. In Japan, regulators have mandated that all exchanges delist privacy coins in recent weeks.

Gemini adding ZCash trading is not the only ‘first’ related to the announcement. The New York Department of Financial Services also becomes the first regulatory entity to supervise ZCash licensing. Maria T. Vullo, superintendent of the New York Department of Financial Services has this to say about the groundbreaking news:

“This action continues New York’s longstanding commitment to innovation and leadership in the global marketplace. With smart and thorough regulatory oversight, the development and long-term growth of the industry will remain thriving.”

Cameron Winklevoss also spoke in a phone interview with Bloomberg, in reference to regulators considering privacy tokens:

“Today demonstrates that through education and collaboration and with the right controls in place, regulators can get comfortable with privacy technology.”

ZCash’s price has skyrocketed over $100 in the wake of the news, to $367.57 per ZEC at the time of this writing.

