Background: As one of the most common genitourinary malignancies worldwide, bladder cancer affects about 3.4 million people globally, with 430,000 new cases a year since 2015. Despite the advances in bladder cancer diagnosis and therapy, there has been little progress in the patients' overall survival in nearly 30 years. Therefore, investigating novel molecular therapeutic targets is required to gain insight into the tumorigenesis of bladder cancer, which ultimately may be used to develop more effective therapeutic strategies. Methods: Herein, we used gene knockdown in vitro and in vivo to unveil the unknown roles of ZSCAN16 in bladder cancer. Afterward, to decipher the unknown regulatory role of ZSCAN16 in tumor progression, we verified that a bunch of genes including NF-kappa B, AKT, mTOR, and P38 were the key downstream regulators of ZSCAN16 by western blot and rescue experiments. Results: We found high expression of ZSCAN16 transcripts in bladder cancer cells and tumor samples from the TCGA database and tissue microarray bank, demonstrated in correlation with poor prognosis for bladder cancer patients. The in vitro experiments indicated that the silencing of ZSCAN16 by shRNA lentivirus promoted apoptosis and inhibited proliferation, colony formation, as well as migration and invasion in T24 cells. By investigating the signaling pathways, we proved ZSCAN16 play a novel role as oncogenic gene in bladder cancer by regulating NF-kappa B, AKT, mTOR, P38 and other genes. Furthermore, the in vivo experiments identified that ZSCAN16 knockdown retarded the tumor growth in nude mice. Conclusions: In summary, these findings revealed that ZSCAN16 is a potential novel oncogene in the development and progression of bladder cancer. This study will shed light on developing novel therapeutic targets in the future treatment of bladder cancer.