The Zcash Arborist Calls are bi-weekly protocol development meetings focused on tracking upcoming protocol deployment logistics, consensus node implementation issues, and protocol research.
This summary focuses on the last call that took place on 28/05/2026
Highlights
Zebra teams continue strengthening node reliability and security.
Zaino, Zodl, and ecosystem contributors are pushing forward on the path to lightwalletd deprecation.
Crosslink FeatureNet is delivering valuable real-world testing data as trailing finality development matures.
Dynamic Fees research is moving closer to real-world wallet experimentation.
Progress continues across ZSAs, NSM, post-quantum recovery, and wallet infrastructure.
Zebra developers are actively investigating reports of node sync stalls affecting some operators across the network.
Alongside that effort, the team has been focused on addressing several security-related issues, with a security release scheduled for publication soon. Further details are expected once the release notes are available.
SDK releases now include fixes to the rewind method, supporting upcoming coin holder polling functionality. Work is also progressing on multi-server transaction broadcast, alongside ongoing security improvements and cross-team collaboration on governance tooling.
Zodl 3.3.1 shipped on iOS as a hotfix release, followed by the rollout of Zodl 3.4.0 across iOS and Android. The Keystone import issue has also been resolved, allowing users to recover and view previously received funds using a wallet birthday height scan.
Current focus areas include coin holder polling, wallet server improvements, and iOS sync fixes. The team also welcomed Harry as Senior Mobile QA and Danny as Principal Cryptographic Engineer.
Zingo Labs released Zaino v0.3.1, bringing cleanup improvements and an upgrade to the latest Zebra version, eliminating the previous lag behind Zebra releases.
The team's primary focus is restoring full lightwalletd parity and accelerating the path toward lightwalletd deprecation as additional vulnerabilities continue to be identified.
Zaino continues to advance the Zcashd deprecation effort, with most Block Explorer RPC milestones now completed. Remaining low-priority RPCs will be implemented on demand based on ecosystem needs.
Integration testing between Zaino and lightwalletd has also helped identify parity issues and even surfaced potential bugs in zcashd.
The next major milestone is achieving full lightwalletd parity in upcoming Zaino releases. While feature completeness is largely in place, extensive testing is now underway before infrastructure can confidently transition from lightwalletd to Zaino.
The team is also working closely with Zodl and Zallet developers to resolve integration issues and strengthen the path toward Zcashd deprecation.
Zcash Shielded Assets (ZSA) development continues to advance, with QEDIT refining Orchard validation logic, improving error handling, and strengthening documentation.
An updated Zebra integration PR has been submitted for review, Orchard work is nearing merge readiness, and the team is incorporating feedback from recent ZCG discussions into its latest grant proposal.
Shielded Labs is wrapping up key Network Sustainability Mechanism (NSM) development work, with the remaining refactor PR being merged into main and the ZIP 234 implementation PR set for publication.
The ZIP 234 work was restructured from the original implementation and is now ready to move forward.
Crosslink FeatureNet has now been running for roughly six weeks as a persistent testing environment. Unlike earlier workshop testnets, the network will continue evolving through 2026, with participants earning real ZEC rewards for testing consensus, staking, and network behavior.
The goal remains gathering real-world data before proposing Crosslink for mainnet.
Crosslink testing has already surfaced valuable insights. Following a large validator outage, the BFT layer stalled as designed to preserve safety, while Proof-of-Work continued operating independently.
The experience exposed networking, transport, block sync, and chain reorganization edge cases that are now helping improve system resilience before any future mainnet deployment.
Shielded Labs has published new Dynamic Fees research focused on three goals: mitigating sandblasting attacks, reducing costs for normal users, and supporting long-term network sustainability.
The initiative begins with wallet-level experiments that can gather real-world data directly from mainnet usage.
Early Dynamic Fees experiments include optional priority transaction delivery and faster transaction expiry settings, giving users additional control over transaction confirmation behavior.
Several wallet teams have already agreed to participate in testing, with more discussions ongoing across the ecosystem.
Future research may introduce a standardized fee estimation endpoint and refinements to ZIP 317 parameters. The goal is to make transaction fees more responsive to network conditions while maintaining protection against abuse and spam.
The work will be guided by data collected from real network activity.
Privacy considerations remain central to the Dynamic Fees discussion. Contributors emphasized minimizing anonymity set fragmentation while balancing usability improvements and network resilience.
The conversation also explored how future technologies such as recursive proofs, intents, and post-Tachyon architectures could unlock more sophisticated transaction and multisig workflows.
Shielded Labs will host its next Office Hours session on June 2 at 15:00 UTC, continuing the Notes, Commitments, and Nullifiers protocol walkthrough that began during the previous session.
Anyone interested in Zcash protocol design and privacy technology is encouraged to join the discussion.