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
Last week, Jason McGee in partnership with the NEAR Intents announced the new Hackathon from the day March 17 - March 28.
The total prize pool is $70,000 for building AI-powered, private, cross-chain DeFi applications using Zcash, NEAR Intents, AI agents, and Chain Signatures.
With Zcash integrated into NEAR’s Intents stack, this hackathon invites builders to develop autonomous AI agents that interact with ZEC for self-sovereign, private finance. Using NEAR Intents and Chain Signatures, developers can create AI-driven tools to store, manage, and transact ZEC, enable shielded cross-chain swaps, and automate privacy-preserving DeFi.
💡What to Build:
AI Agents for Zcash: AI bots that store, manage, and trade ZEC.
Private DeFi: Shielded swaps, portfolio management, and intent-driven trading.
Cross-Chain Interoperability: Zcash-powered transactions across BTC, ETH, SOL, and more.
🔍 Judging Criteria:
Innovation & Creativity: Unique and original use of AI, Zcash, and NEAR Intents.
Technical Execution: Functional, well-integrated, and secure implementation.
Privacy & Security: Strengthens financial privacy using Zcash’s shielded technology.
User Experience: Intuitive, efficient, and accessible for users
Impact & Feasibility: Real-world relevance, potential for adoption and long-term sustainability.
Fully remote & open to all - join 20-30 teams in shaping the future of AI-driven privacy in DeFi!
During ZconVI, ZCG received many interesting questions on Whova, and to ensure they weren’t lost, Artkor (@ruzcash) started a thread on the forum to transfer them to the platform, answering the questions in the post.
❓Question by Zancas:
“Do you see liberated payments as having amazing potential for great ROI for onboarding people into Zcash? Could liberated-payments as a gateway into Zcash Based Messaging radically lower the barrier to entry?"
🗣️Answer: ZeroDartz:
"I personally see liberated payments as a great tool to onboard people. its hard to say about the ROI, but it definitely makes onboarding easier and getting people their first ZEC. Zcash should go where the users are, but the users also have to be open to trying out new things.’’
Additional Answer:
‘‘Yes, this is definitely a growth point. Imagine you just send someone a link in a chat - they download a wallet, receive ZEC, and get introduced to Unstoppable Private Money, even if they’ve never heard of it before. No need for long explanations, convincing, or preparation - if the amount is motivating enough, they’ll figure it out on their own, and the wallet will guide them through all the key details.’’
_**‘‘This opens up new possibilities. For example, leaving a tip in ZEC - quick and easy. Or simply sending someone a small gift. Isn’t that cool? It’s similar to an airdrop but in a personalized format. Mass airdrops have long lost their effectiveness because hunters create groups, immediately sell the received coins, and rarely bother to learn about the project. Liberated payments, on the other hand, provide a personal experience that is far more engaging.’’
’’When someone receives ZEC, they are highly likely to want to learn more. They will research Zcash on their own, watch videos from Zcash Media, embrace the idea, and maybe even become part of the community. This type of onboarding works much better than simple giveaways - it creates genuine interest. It’s truly a powerful marketing tool.’’**_
❓Question by @ZecMec:
“With multiple organisations and individuals contributing to the evolution of Zcash it seems we all might be in dire need of a Club House to relax, collaborate and even to disagree (healthily!) together. Will any members of the panel be in France this summer to join us for the inaugural Shielded Sandbox event at The Zebra Lounge?”
🗣️Answer by Artkor:
‘‘I can only answer for myself here. That despite the fact that I like such initiatives very much, I will not be able to be in Europe this year, because it has become much more problematic to get a Schengen visa.’’
This is an post that will shape future updates. Last week, Pacu mentioned working with us (ZecHub) to create a Zcashd Deprecation Dashboard. Pacu knows many people love reading these detailed updates in the forums to understand what’s going on around Zcashd deprecation, and appreciate every reader of the updates.
**(re) Introducing ZecDev
**
ZecDev is powered by a Nextra Blog, hosted as a static website on GitHub, and continuously deployed with GitHub Actions on every update. This means that everyone, yes! Pacu’s mentioned that the community can contribute to making ZecDev more informative, clear, and useful, inviting everyone to access the quote-on-quote ‘‘dashboard’’.
The dashboard will also have more projects and information like NU7 info, NSM, ZSAs and probably many other things more that come up from your feedback.
OBS: Zcashd deprecation is now called Z3 (Zebra x Zaino x Zallet)
“Z³” is an original idea from Zancas (ZingoLabs) that you can read more about here
In this update, Josh reflects on Zcash’s journey, drawing parallels to The Tempest by Shakespeare. Initially envisioned as a “Better Bitcoin,” Zcash faced external challenges such as exchange delistings and internal divisions within its community.
However, a recent shift suggests a new era of collaboration and trust-building, exemplified by teamwork between key figures in the ecosystem.
Like Prospero, Zcash has endured storms and emerged with renewed purpose. Despite past struggles, the community now stands united, holding onto its foundational “magic” with a spirit of resilience and optimism for the future.
Zashi
📱| Zashi Design
Made progress on App Redesign:
Shielding UI
Syncing + Restoring UI
Balances UI
Added Wallet Birthday Height to the Keystone Connect flow
Made a bunch of ad hoc product and engineering requested edits
🧑💻| Q&A and Dev Support
Project Management - helping with tracking issues in GitHub and Linear
Testing redesigned Android app
Community and Socials Management
User Support
🍎| Zashi iOS
📈Analytics Update:
★ Unique Installs: 6.89k
★ Total Downloads: 8.19k
★ AppStore Rating: 4.9*
iOS 16 Navigation Stack PoC:
All Settings screens
All Scan flows
Keystone integration
Transaction Detail flows
Address Book flows
Hit the issue of TCA stack overflow, investigating of our options
Release 1.5:
WIP: Transparent Gap Limit Handling
Fixed issue of the background sync task causing Zashi to crash
🤖| Zashi Android
📈Analytics Update:
★ Total Install Base: 3.72k
★ Total Installs (incl. Open Beta): 16k
★ PlayStore Rating: 4.447*
All dependencies updated to their latest version!
- Resolved several known issues and limitations as a part of this task
Restore Redesign:
Recovery Phrase screen redesigned & fully refactored
Wallet Birthday Height screen redesigned & fully refactored
New seed input fields implemented
Estimate Block Height feature + screen
Implemented fully custom iOS-like year-month date picker
Implemented new bottom sheet explainer
WIP: business logic
Home Screen performance updates:
Initial loading after wallet creation/restoration improved significantly without blocking user UI
Changes include balance, account (top bar), and exchange rate loading
Onboarding Redesign:
Restore Wallet navigation refactored
Create Wallet navigation partially refactored
WIP: BIP 39 dependency update
🦓| Zcash Core
Successfully rescued locked funds from an old Ledger wallet by importing the seed phrase into Keystone & shielding with Zashi!
Updated zallet to use the abscissa component architecture, upstreamed relevant changes to abscissa interfaces.
Design and research work for secure automatic seed phrase backup options for Android & iOS wallet SDKs.
Reviewed lockbox disbursement proposals & worked on disbursement mechanism design.
Added zallet implementations of listaddresses , z_listunifiedreceivers, and z_getaddressforaccount RPC methods.
Significant ZIP editing progress on the V6 transaction format.
🌐| Other
Alex, Jason, and Josh worked together to draft a plan and post on how to move forward with the development fund.
Alex joined Jason, Jon (Qedit), and Josh for biweekly ZSA outreach planning.
Andrea, Tatyana, and Josh met with members of the NEAR team to plan our work together.
ECC was notified by our attorney that they consider our SEC subpoena matter closed!