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.
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Fact of the Week 💡
Zcash wallets with integrated network layer privacy such as Zodl, Edge & Unstoppable protect both onchain details with shielded transactions and also encrypt your network metadata (IP address timing, wallet-server connections, traffic patterns) from internet service providers and network observers**.**
📩 In today’s edition: 🟢 $ZEC Is Now Available to Trade on Robinhood• Robinhood has listed Zcash for U.S. users, giving ZEC more visibility and making it easier for retail investors to access the asset through one of the most popular financial platforms in the country. 🔁 Zcash Launches on THORChain• Zcash is moving further into native cross-chain swaps, with THORChain integration starting to roll out after years of discussion and earlier progress through Maya Protocol. 🛡️ Shielded Labs Engages Taylor Hornby as Security Consultant• Shielded Labs has brought on Taylor Hornby (@earthrise) as a part-time Security Consultant for three months, aiming to strengthen Zcash security as AI-assisted vulnerability discovery becomes more common. 🏹 Bending The Bow | ZODL Update• This week’s ZODL update highlights progress across Zodl, Zcash Core, and the broader ecosystem, including Zodl 3.4.0 preparation, Wallet Rewind API work, DCG’s investment in ZODL, and continued momentum around Robinhood and THORChain. ❄️ FROST v3.0.0• FROST v3.0.0 has been officially released, bringing important security and compatibility improvements, including ZeroizeOnDrop for sensitive key material and fixes to signature share verification. 🧪 ZingoLabs | Progress of March• ZingoLabs shared its March progress update, including the official release of Zaino 0.2.0, “The Zallet Release,” with multi-channel availability, public Alpha testing infrastructure, and performance improvements for Zallet integration. 🎁 ZEC-NAM Shielded Airdrop Milestone 4 Complete• ZEC-NAM completed milestone 4 of its shielded airdrop protocol, finalizing end-to-end testing, the zair tool, Namada integration, plain values support, and SDK improvements for simpler integration.
$ZEC is now available to trade on Robinhood
Last week, we got the news that $ZEC was added to Robinhood, one of the most popular financial platforms in the United States. This means users on the platform can now access $ZEC in a simpler, more direct way, right inside an app that many people already use every day.
For those who may not know, Robinhood became well-known for making financial markets easier to access. The platform lets users trade stocks, ETFs, options, and crypto through a very simple interface, which helped make it one of the main entry points for retail investors in the U.S.
For $ZEC, this integration is a pretty relevant development. Being available on Robinhood increases the asset’s visibility, makes it easier for new users to access, and could help bring more liquidity to the market.
In the end, this is more than just a new listing. It shows that ZEC continues to gain space on major platforms and is getting closer to the mainstream audience.
Zcash Launches on THORChain
Building on the previous integration, Zcash has also been gaining more ground in cross-chain swaps. First came the ZEC listing on Maya Protocol in 2024, and now the THORChain integration is starting to move forward.
For those who have been following for a while, this isn’t something that came out of nowhere. The idea of bringing Zcash to THORChain had been discussed for years, but the process took longer than many people expected. Along the way, Maya moved first and ended up becoming an important first step in that direction.
THORChain@THORChain
Zcash is now enabled on THORChain.⚡️ Trading will begin in the coming weeks as nodes add support and Bifrost scanning goes live. The progressive rollout of native zcash:native swaps on THORChain has officially begun.
Now, with THORChain entering the picture, ZEC gets another access point outside of centralized exchanges. This could help bring more liquidity, make native swaps easier, and place Zcash in another relevant corner of DeFi.
Shielded Labs Engages Taylor Hornby As Security Consultant.
Recently, Jason McGee (@aquietinvestor) posted a note on the forum saying that Shielded Labs is bringing on Taylor Hornby (@earthrise) as a part-time Security Consultant for three months, in response to the recent increase in security-related activity across the Zcash ecosystem. The main point is that the team wants to get ahead of a new phase where AI tools make it much easier to find bugs in complex codebases, whether by white-hat researchers or potential attackers.
The decision comes after a rise in vulnerability reports affecting zcashd and Zebra, including a critical issue found in March by a researcher using AI, which had gone undetected in zcashd for almost six years.
Taylor, who has years of experience working on Zcash security and has previously worked with ECC, ZCG, and the Zcash Foundation, will help identify vulnerabilities, improve the triage process, and coordinate fixes with other organizations in the ecosystem.
Bending The Bow | ZODL Update
Josh’s update this week talks about how Zcash’s current moment didn’t come out of nowhere. What might look sudden from the outside is actually the result of years of building, testing, and refining.
The tools needed to strengthen financial privacy, autonomy, and shielded adoption have been taking shape over many cycles. Now, with improvements in scalability, usability, and security moving forward, Zcash seems to be getting closer to an important moment.
ZODL
Zodl 3.3.1 for Android is now available on GitHub, Solana, and F-Droid.
Zodl 3.4.0 is close to release, with improvements to Keystone, Wallet Birthday Height, and the new Rewind API.
Key Android fixes include send flow issues, comma-decimal locales, Tor during sync, QR bugs, and resync-related bugs.
Coinholder Polling is still in progress: iOS is in code review, Android is underway, and shielded voting in the Swift SDK is also under review.
New designs were finalized for the Receive screen, transparent address rotation, and Time to Spendability.
Metrics
🍎 | iOS: Unique Installs: 40.6k (+0.2k), Total Downloads: 48.1k (+0.4k), App Store Rating: 4.9★ (no change)
🤖 | Android: Install Base: 15.4k (no notable change), Total Installs (incl. Open Beta): 48.8k (+0.4k), Play Store Rating: 4.26★ (no change)
Zcash Core
Released orchard 0.13.0, sapling-crypto 0.7.0, and updates to the librustzcash stack.
The new Wallet Rewind API was released, improving rescans without disrupting funds in existing accounts.
EIP-681 payment URI integration was completed in the iOS SDK.
The migration from zcashd to Zallet continues with fixes and testing.
Next focus: Zallet alpha.4, sync engine improvements, migration testing, and continued work on NU7.
Other / Ecosystem
DCG announced an investment in ZODL during the DCG Summit.
The Zodl rebrand is still underway, with visual identity work continuing.
@zodl_support launched on X as a dedicated support and community channel.
Regulatory work continues in the U.S. and Europe, including MiCA-related review and privacy advocacy.
FROST v3.0.0
FROST v3.0.0 has officially been released, with frost-core and the ciphersuite crates now available on crates.io. This stable release follows v3.0.0-rc.0, which introduced most of the major changes.
What changed since the release candidate:
SigningKeyis no longerCopyand now implementsZeroizeOnDrop, meaning signing keys are automatically wiped from memory when they go out of scope.dkg::round2::Packagealso now implementsZeroizeOnDrop, reducing the time sensitive material stays in memory.verify_signature_share()now correctly calls theCiphersuite::pre_commitment_aggregate()hook, fixing a bug in the per-share verification path.PublicKeyPackage::new()now takesmin_signersas anOption, allowingNonewhen the threshold is not known at construction time, such as when deserializing packages from older versions.
ZingoLabs | Progress of March
In March, Zaino reached an important milestone with the official release of version 0.2.0, also called “The Zallet Release.” This release fulfills the main proposed use cases and deliverables, bringing the project closer to stronger integration with Zallet.
The version is now available across multiple channels, including DockerHub, GitHub, and Crates.io, with the zainod, common, proto, fetch, state, and serve modules.
The team also launched the first public endpoint for Alpha users, which should make it easier to test the infrastructure in an environment closer to real usage.
Another important point was the creation of a periodic release model, bringing more predictability to the project’s development. On the performance side, the team also made solid progress, with meaningful improvements to sync times and fixes for critical locks needed for the Zallet integration.
New update → Link
ZEC-NAM Shielded Airdrop Milestone 4 Complete
Six days ago, the completion of another ZEC-NAM milestone was published, and since it has been a little while since this topic was covered here, it is worth going over the latest updates.
The project has completed milestone 4 of the ZEC-NAM shielded airdrop protocol, with this final phase focused on end-to-end testing, polishing, and delivering the zair tool, along with the Namada integration. This milestone also marks the completion of the project’s planned deliverables.
One of the main updates in this phase is the addition of plain values, which allow users to reveal the note amounts for each note claimed during the airdrop process. This can be useful for simpler integrations where revealing those values is acceptable, and it can also make claims much faster by avoiding the heavier SHA-256 value commitment flow.
The SDK was also improved to support a more direct integration, removing the need to manage files and seeds on disk. This should make the tooling easier to test and integrate.
With this final phase now complete, the team also shared a few possible next steps, including a security audit of the main zair tooling and zk-proofs, as well as support for claiming airdrops using only the viewing key.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvMKccfYR7c