Zcash Shielded News is a community article format based on the weekly Zcash Ecosystem Digest Newsletter.
Providing insight on current events and informing the community about important news in the Zcash ecosystem.
Check out the best Highlights below!
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📩 In today’s edition: 🚀 Crosslink moves into incentivized feature nets with ZEC rewards• Crosslink has entered its incentivized feature net phase, introducing ZEC rewards as part of its continued development and testing process. 🛡️ Privacy as protection: Rethinking blockchain, cryptocurrency, and humanitarian sector reform• Alex Bornstein & Natalie Ezskinazi from the Zcash Foundation joined the podcast for a conversation on privacy as protection, exploring how blockchain, cryptocurrency, and privacy-preserving technologies can help rethink reform in the humanitarian sector. 📝 Zcash Community Grants | Meeting Minutes 01/04/26• The latest Zcash Community Grants meeting minutes provide updates on discussions, decisions, and ongoing priorities across the grants ecosystem. 💡 Project Tachyon | Sean Bowe & Dev | Zcash Post-Quantum Roadmap Discussion• In a recent whiteboard session, Sean Bowe and Dev discussed Zcash’s post-quantum roadmap, including recoverability in the near term, PIR with the Tachyon upgrade for full post-quantum privacy, and the foundations for post-quantum soundness alongside major scalability improvements. 🔴 Josh Swihart on Privacy, CBDCs & Self-Sovereignty• In a recent conversation, Josh discussed financial privacy, the risks of CBDCs, and why self-sovereignty matters, while also reflecting on Zcash’s role in building a more private digital future.Fact of the Week 💡
Free2Z is one of the projects expanding Zcash’s real-world utility, giving creators a way to publish content and receive direct support through private, peer-to-peer donations.
Link → free2z.cash
Shielded Labs is moving Crosslink from the prototype stage into a more practical phase with the launch of feature nets, incentivized testnets where stakers, finalizers, and miners will be able to earn real ZEC. The goal is to test Crosslink in a more realistic environment while continuing to refine the design, implementation, and user experience ahead of any possible mainnet adoption.
These feature nets will run in cycles called seasons. Each season will be a new network, with new software and no shared ledger or consensus history. Even so, participants will still be able to continue earning rewards and carry over their finalizer identities.
Shielded Labs has allocated 500 ZEC to the program. Season 1 begins on April 15 and will distribute 25 ZEC, or 5% of the total allocation.
Participants will earn cTAZ based on their activity, and that balance will determine the proportional distribution of ZEC at the end of each season. The proposed reward split follows the structure envisioned for a potential Crosslink mainnet:
40% to miners
40% to stakers
20% to the Dev Fund
Shielded Labs also emphasizes that stakers are not just earning rewards, they are also helping secure the network by choosing which finalizers to support. That is why the project refers to them as Protocol Guardians.
More broadly, the proposal reflects a more practical development model for Zcash: instead of relying only on theoretical discussions, features can be tested in working networks before any decision is made about mainnet deployment. According to Shielded Labs, this helps reduce both technical and governance uncertainty, while giving the community a clearer view of what works in practice.
Stay tuned! 👀
On March 31, the Humanitarian Leadership Academy published a podcast episode featuring Alex Bornstein and Natalie Eskinazi from the Zcash Foundation for a conversation on blockchain, cryptocurrency, and financial privacy in the humanitarian sector.
The episode offers an accessible and practical discussion on why this topic goes far beyond technology and finance. It touches on protection, security, and financial privacy, while also exploring how these tools could have real applications in areas like cash assistance, treasury management, localisation, and digital transformation. They also reflect on why so many innovation pilots never become real programs, and what would need to change for that to happen.
Some of the highlights from the conversation:
why blockchain in the humanitarian sector should not be dismissed as just hype
the difference between real innovation and “innovation theatre”
why financial privacy is also a protection and “do no harm” issue
accessible explanations of concepts like distributed ledgers and zero-knowledge proofs
practical examples of where these technologies could be useful
who needs to be part of this conversation across organizations
You can listen to the full conversation on all major platforms, including:
Enjoy! :)
Over the past few weeks, the ZCG committee reviewed a large number of proposals. The outcome of that meeting was published on March 30, and since then, ZCG has shared additional decisions, approving some proposals and declining others.
As of now, this is the final outcome.
Approved Proposals 🟢
Guided Fuzzing Infrastructure
Amount: $30,000
Purpose: Build a coverage-guided fuzzing infrastructure for Zebra to improve security testing and help identify bugs in high-risk components.
Zcash Ghana (April 2026 - June 2026)
Amount: $12,600
Purpose: Continue education, outreach, events, and developer activities to grow Zcash awareness and adoption in Ghana.
Zcash Ecosystem Onboarding At Women in DeFi Summit 2026
Amount: $4,960
Purpose: Fund Zcash presence and onboarding efforts at Women in DeFi Summit 2026 in Nigeria.
Rhea Zcash Gateway
Amount: $54,200
Purpose: Develop a Chrome extension wallet to connect Zcash with DeFi through shielded transactions and multichain tooling.
Declined Proposals 🔴
Wrapped Zcash
Amount: $80,000
Purpose: Launch a fully collateralized ERC-20 version of ZEC to expand Zcash access across Ethereum, L2s, and DeFi ecosystems.
Shielded Micropayments SDK for Privacy-Preserving Rewards
Amount: $29,000
Purpose: Develop an open-source Rust SDK for integrating shielded Zcash micropayments into apps such as rewards and tipping platforms.
QSTN V2: Private Zcash Rewards for Digital Activity
Amount: $20,000
Purpose: Add Zcash as a private payout option to a rewards platform tied to digital activity and social account engagement.
weave-zec: Non-Custodial Shielded Merchant Payments for Zcash
Amount: $48,000
Purpose: Build a non-custodial shielded Zcash payment module for merchants and AI agents.
Hera’s Ledger
Amount: $28,500
Purpose: Create a privacy-focused financial platform aimed at protecting women facing domestic financial abuse through stealth addresses and zero-knowledge tools.
Zcash Web Gateway
Amount: $15,900
Purpose: Deliver a production-ready browser-to-lightwalletd gateway stack for web-based Zcash wallets.
PEER28 PEERPORTAL
Amount: $800,000
Purpose: Integrate Zcash privacy-preserving payments into a decentralized social platform with creator monetization and content features.
ACCUM Fair Proof-of-Contribution Mining Protocol
Amount: $75,000
Purpose: Develop a separate blockchain protocol using a new mining and reward model aimed at fairer participation.
Reputrans
Amount: $45,000
Purpose: Build a privacy-preserving reputation portability protocol for gig workers using zero-knowledge proofs.
Zallet ↔ zcashd Wallet RPC Parity Harness: Reproducible Diff Reports for Migration Testing
Amount: $20,000
Purpose: Build a testing harness to compare wallet RPC behavior between zcashd and Zallet during wallet migration work.
Launching the First Zcash Privacy and Developer Education Initiative Across Kenyan Universities and Tech Communities 2026
Amount: $41,000
Purpose: Run a nationwide education and developer outreach initiative focused on Zcash across universities and tech communities in Kenya.
Zecret Ballots by Gnosis Guild
Amount: $100,000
Purpose: Build a coercion-resistant secret voting application for Zcash governance participants.
Under Review 🟡
Formal Verification of Halo 2 in Lean 4
Amount: $201,600
Purpose: Formally verify Orchard and Halo 2 components in Lean 4 to strengthen assurance around Zcash’s privacy infrastructure.
Result: Remains open
Rhea Zcash Gateway
Amount: $54,200
Purpose: Develop a Chrome extension wallet to connect Zcash with DeFi through shielded transactions and multichain tooling.
Marketing at Berlin Blockchain Week & 2-Day Event with WebZero
Amount: $63,820
Purpose: Run a Zcash-focused grassroots activation and onboarding campaign during Berlin Blockchain Week.
Zcash Integration for the Open Wallet Standard
Amount: $25,000
Purpose: Integrate Zcash into the Open Wallet Standard so AI agent wallet frameworks can support the network.
Recently, the Project Tachyon team introduced a new content format, and its debut could not have been more timely.
In a whiteboard session, Sean Bowe and Dev came together to discuss some of the most important questions surrounding Zcash’s future: the post-quantum roadmap, the path toward recoverability in the near term, the use of PIR alongside the Tachyon upgrade to enable full post-quantum privacy, and the steps required to establish post-quantum soundness while also unlocking major gains in scalability.
The conversation also underscored the technical ambition behind the project. A team of expert cryptographers is currently working on Zcash’s new Tachyon shielded pool. At the same time, Dev is leading the formation of a new team focused on building a scalable, post-quantum payment and backup protocol, one that Tachyon is expected to rely on heavily.
It is also worth noting the broader context behind the initiative. Project Tachyon is funded by private donations from ZEC holders who see scalability and quantum resilience as two essential priorities for Zcash’s future. And according to recent coinholder polling, that vision appears to have broad support across the community.
It’s worth watching. 🙂
To close this edition, a new conversation with Josh (ZODL CEO) reflects on the moment when the issue of financial freedom became deeply real for him: after 25 years in tech, a blocked Western Union transfer meant to help families in an Indian slum showed just how fragile access to payments can be.
From there, the discussion opens into a much bigger picture — financial surveillance, CBDCs, self-sovereignty, and why privacy should never be treated as optional. Josh also talks about how Zcash works, why private digital cash matters in everyday life, and what is at stake if this fight is lost.
Video of the Week 🎥
If you’re interested in VPNs, here’s another option that can be purchased with Shielded ZEC — in a 100% private way — to strengthen your digital protection.
Meile dVPN is a decentralized VPN designed to offer greater privacy, stronger censorship resistance, and more user control than traditional services.
In this tutorial, you’ll see how Meile works and how to purchase it in practice using Shielded ZEC. 🛡️