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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💡 Fact of the Week
Zcash Arborist Calls are recurring community calls where ecosystem contributors discuss Zcash development, protocol work, and technical coordination.
After discussions with ecosystem partners, all Arborist Calls are moving to a single time slot: 15:00 UTC, while keeping the same bi-weekly schedule.
📩 In today’s edition: 📱 Zodl 3.6.0 Adds More Currency Options and Faster Setup• Zodl 3.6.0 is now available with support for 23 fiat currencies, redesigned Automatic and Manual server selection, and faster new-wallet setup by syncing from the current chain tip. 🔐 Ledger Integration Update: Shielded Progress and Ironwood Plans• The Ledger integration team shared progress on Zcash shielded support, including UFVK sharing, Orchard Unified Address generation, Ledger Wallet Desktop shielded sync, NU6.2 fixes, and a roadmap shift toward Ironwood. ⛏️ Sovright Mining Pool Testnet Is Live• Sovright launched its Zcash mining pool testnet, focused on mining decentralization, shielded payouts, and an open-source Stratum V2 implementation for Zcash. 🦓 Zebra Update: New Releases, Sync Fixes, and NU7 Preparation• ZF shared a Zebra engineering update covering the Orchard security response, sync stall fixes, NU7 preparation, RPC improvements, and the latest Zebra v5.2.0 release with a wider local rollback window. 🚀 God Doesn’t Play Dice. ZODL Update• In this week’s ZODL update, Josh Swihart explored how Zcash can combine financial privacy and verification, arguing that trust does not require full visibility or a “God mode” view into every transaction. 
Zodl 3.6.0 Adds More Currency Options and Faster Setup
Zodl 3.6.0 is now available with updates focused on everyday usability.
Users can now view balances and payments in 23 fiat currencies, instead of only U.S. dollars. Currency conversion can be changed in Settings or through the Wallet Status Widget, while still respecting Tor Protection settings.
The release also simplifies server selection with two options: Automatic, which connects to the best available server, and Manual, for users who want more control. Existing custom server settings remain unchanged.
New wallets now sync from the current chain tip, skipping unnecessary scanning and making first setup faster.
The currency update was inspired by a community contribution from tippenein, while the connectivity and wallet setup improvements were developed with Valar Group.
Ledger Integration Update: Shielded Progress and Ironwood Plans 🔐
Last week, the Ledger integration team shared a monthly update on Zcash shielded support, the recent NU6.2 emergency response, and how Ironwood affects the roadmap.
The Zcash Device App has fully rolled out UFVK sharing and Orchard Unified Address generation. Work continues on Orchard transactions and ClearSign, including Orchard-to-Orchard, Orchard-to-transparent, and transparent-to-Orchard transfers. Core transaction logic is targeted for the end of June, with UI work planned for July.
On Ledger Wallet Desktop, shielded sync is complete and tested. The team can scan the full Orchard history from the birthday block in under 65 minutes, and private send/receive flows are now being integrated across the Zcash library, Coin Module, and UI.
Ledger also shipped several fixes after the NU6.2 soft fork introduced a new consensus Branch ID:
zcashdbackend update, released June 2Ledger Wallet Desktop 4.6.1 hotfix, released June 3
Ledger Wallet Mobile 4.7 update, released June 9
Zcash Rust app v3.0.1 transparent transaction fix, released June 15
Transparent ZEC transactions and swaps now work normally through Ledger Wallet. The internal Zaino indexer is still being restored, but this does not affect users because shielded sync remains behind a production feature toggle. The legacy Zondax shielded app also still needs a stable Branch ID update.
Looking ahead, Ledger is shifting its shielded integration work toward Ironwood rather than releasing a standalone Orchard integration first. Much of the Orchard work carries forward, including sync logic, key derivation, witness computation, coin selection, and core cryptographic components.
The timeline is still being reassessed. Ironwood’s final Branch ID, activation height, and deployment details are not finalized yet, so Ledger expects to share a clearer delivery timeline in the next monthly update.
Sovright Mining Pool Testnet Is Live ⛏️
Sovright, formerly Bootstrap, announced that its Zcash mining pool testnet is now live.
The project is focused on mining decentralization, shielded payouts, and giving independent miners more control over transaction selection. Sovright says its pool supports an open-source Stratum V2 implementation for Zcash, allowing miners to either connect quickly through the pool or run their own node and construct their own block templates.
For now, this is still a testnet release, but it is an important infrastructure experiment for Zcash mining, especially as the network continues discussing scalability, privacy, and decentralization.
Zebra Update: New Releases, Sync Fixes, and NU7 Preparation 🦓
A few days ago, ZF shared a busy engineering update for Zebra, covering the Orchard security response, sync improvements, NU7 preparation, and infrastructure fixes across releases up to v5.1.1.
Since then, Zebra v5.2.0 has also been released, making it the latest version. All node operators are encouraged to upgrade, as nodes running v5.1.1 or earlier are expected to reach end-of-support around July 25, 2026, ahead of the expected NU7 network upgrade.
Key updates:
Orchard security response: after independent researcher Taylor Hornby discovered a soundness bug in the Orchard zero-knowledge proof circuit, Zebra shipped coordinated releases to temporarily disable Orchard actions and later re-enable Orchard through NU6.2 with the corrected circuit. User privacy was not affected, and Sapling and transparent transactions continued normally.
Sync stall fixed: ZF resolved an initial block download issue that could cause syncing to stall. With the fix, genesis-to-tip sync now completes in around 14 hours without stalls.
Zebra v5.2.0: the latest release widens Zebra’s local rollback window from 99 to 1,000 blocks, giving nodes more room to handle deep reorganizations and helping defend against sustained consensus split scenarios.
NU7 preparation: Zebra bumped the minimum peer protocol version to NU6.2, added updated checkpoints and dependency refreshes, and corrected the end-of-support warning window ahead of the expected NU7 timeline.
RPC improvements:
getpeerinfowas extended with additional fields, giving node operators better visibility into peer connections.CI and infrastructure cleanup: They fixed several CI and test issues, including race conditions, fork PR failures, flaky
getblocktemplatebehavior, main branch failures, and peer set unit test timeouts.Other engineering work: fixes also landed across
frostd, Zeeder, infra-dns, and integration tests, including better DNS seeder structure, redirect updates for old ZF URLs, and safer test shutdown behavior.External contributions: contributors outside ZF helped fix queued block handling, improve
getrawmempoolperformance, simplify ZIP-234-related block code, and improve CI coverage for ZSA draft work.
The update leaves Zebra more stable, easier to run, and better prepared for upcoming network upgrades.
God doesn’t play dice. ZODL update
In this week’s ZODL update, Josh highlighted a central idea for Zcash: trust does not always require seeing everything.
Public blockchains often assume that transparency is the only path to verification, but Zcash takes a different approach. Zero-knowledge proofs allow the network to verify what needs to be true without exposing the private details behind it.
Financial privacy and verification can exist together. Zcash does not need “God mode” to prove that the system works.
Zodl Mobile
The team produced a working prototype of a new sync engine aimed at significantly improving Zodl’s syncing speed.
Zodl 3.7 was finalized and tested, with multi-server transaction broadcast and security fixes expected to ship next week.
Security hardening and bug fixes continued.
Looking ahead, mobile work will focus on Orchard-to-Ironwood migration, more security hardening, Swapkit integration for Maya DEX, and a native macOS app prototype.
Zcash Core and R&D
The Zallet alpha.4 launch corridor opened after all three gating sync-engine items were closed.
Zaino was bumped to v0.4.0, unlocking NU6.2 support and ephemeral databases, while the Zaino database-format migration was completed.
The Keystone hardware-wallet disconnect bug was fixed.
zcashd-migration coverage was broadened to pre-Sapling HD seedless wallets.
foss.zodl.com is now live as a self-hosted F-Droid repository, giving ZODL its own auto-updating FOSS distribution channel.
Looking ahead, the team is preparing to ship Zallet alpha.4, begin alpha.5 work, continue note quantization and splitting ahead of Orchard-to-Ironwood migration, and complete Zaino/lightwalletd gRPC parity testing.
Analytics
🍎 | iOS: 44.4k unique installs, 53.2k total downloads, 4.9★ App Store rating
🤖 | Android: 16.2k install base, 52.9k total installs, including Open Beta, 4.21★ Play Store rating
Policy and Regulatory
PGPZ Community launched and published its first weekly update, along with a special first-half 2026 update.
PGPZ Coalition launched and invited its first cohort of prospective members.
The first PGPZ Breakfast is scheduled for June 30.
Arktouros continued evaluating ZODL-operated wallet infrastructure, with diagrams and documentation produced for follow-up.
DC Privacy Summit and Cypherpunk Policy Dinner logistics are being finalized.
Other / Company
ZODL Summit preparation continued across presentations, logistics, and security.
Hiring is underway for a Marketing Analytics and Optimization Specialist and an interim Security Director.
Market and Ecosystem
ZODL highlighted Zcash as a store of value that is private, globally accessible, and usable without intermediaries.
Tushar, co-founder of Multicoin, described Zcash as “a return to crypto’s roots” and to the cypherpunk ideals crypto was founded on.
Zcash at Berlin Blockchain Week 🇩🇪
Zcash had a strong presence at Berlin Blockchain Week, with the Blockspäti bringing together around 900 people for a multi-day community event focused on privacy, culture, and real-world crypto use.
The event featured talks, workshops, art, music, vendors, a hackathon, BBQ, co-working space, and merchants selling items for ZEC. One of the standout moments was a packed talk by Vi, focused on financial independence and how crypto can support real people with real needs.
Across the week, Blockspäti showed Zcash in a more practical and human way: not just as technology, but as a payment tool, a privacy movement, and a community.