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!
Fact of the Week: Shielded Pool Growth
Over 27% of all ZEC is now stored in the shielded pool, reaching an all-time high of 4.39 million ZEC. This milestone highlights Zcash’s growing adoption for true on-chain privacy — more users are choosing to keep their funds protected while enjoying seamless, private transactions. 🛡️
IN TODAY’S EDITION 🧭 A Trip — ECC Update• Zcash adoption hits new highs with 4.39M ZEC (27%) now shielded.• Zcash adoption hits new highs with 4.39M ZEC (27%) now shielded.• Zcash adoption hits new highs with 4.39M ZEC (27%) now shielded. 🛡️ Shielded Labs Welcomes Judah Caruso• Judah Caruso joins as Developer Relations Engineer.• He’ll improve network upgrades and strengthen collaboration with exchanges and partners. 🗳️ ZCG | Meeting Minutes — Oct 13, 2025• ShapeShift integration and Zaino approved.• Marketing and ambassador grants rejected; stronger execution required. ⚙️ Z3 Development Update — Oct 10• Zebra 3.0.0 with NU 6.1 near release.• Zaino tooling overhaul and Zallet Alpha testing continue.
A Trip - ECC Update
Josh shared that while ECC doesn’t focus on price, adoption and price often reinforce one another. This week wasn’t about an all-time-high, it was about real signs of adoption.
🔎 Diving into ECC updates
📊 Growth & Adoption
The shielded pool reached 4.395M ZEC, about 27% of all ZEC in existence. marking a new all-time high.
This growth aligns with the launch of Zashi, known internally as the “Zashi effect.”
Transaction volume surged in August, driven by NEAR and Maya swap integrations and NEAR Intents within Zashi.
Over $40 M in value has already been swapped through Zashi since late August, with ZEC consistently leading daily swap volume.
ECC believes the trend is clear: people want privacy, and Zashi is delivering it with a seamless user experience.
Zashi
Recent Updates:
Zashi 2.4.1 and 2.4.2 bug-fix updates released to production on both platforms.
Zashi 2.4.3 coming soon with additional fixes.
Now listed on the Solana App Store.
Work began on the Zashi Knowledge Base to improve user education and support.
Coming Soon:
Implement ephemeral transparent addresses for NEAR Intents.
Continue debugging and UX improvements.
Advance new features: Transparent Address Rotation, Ledger support, Duress/Decoy Wallet, Multi-Account Support, and Reset Zashi revamp.
Zashi | Adoption Numbers
IOS
Unique Installs: 14,6k (prev.12,1k)
Total Downloads: 17,1k (prev. 14,7k)
AppStore Rating: 4.9* ★
🤖 Android
Total Install Base: 5.67k (prev. 4,83k )
Total Installs (incl. Open Beta): 25,5k (prev.25k)
Playstore Rating: 4.347* ★
Zcash Core 🦓
Recent Updates:
NU 6.1 final specs completed.
Meetings held with Ledger and NEAR teams on shielded support.
Continued Zallet development and bug fixes for Zashi.
Seeder and exchange-rate sources updated for mainnet.
Added hashed-password JSON-RPC authorization to Zallet.
Coming Soon:
Implement account deletion for zcash_client_sqlite.
Add ephemeral transparent addresses for swaps and payments.
Continue Zallet Beta work and zcashd deprecation efforts.
Other 🌐
ECC completed quarterly planning; an updated roadmap will be released soon.
Meetings held with DCG and Moon on project updates and Zcash support.
Paul will speak at several DC events next week, including the DC Fintech Summit, Privacy Summit, and Milken Institute’s Future of Money event.
🛡️ Shielded Labs Welcomes Judah Caruso
Shielded Labs is excited to welcome Judah Caruso (@judah) as a Developer Relations Engineer. Judah is a versatile programmer with experience across full-stack development, compilers, game engines, and infrastructure systems.
His work will focus on improving the Zcash network upgrade process by collaborating with exchanges, mining pools, and key ecosystem partners, helping streamline integrations and make upgrades more predictable.
Before joining Shielded Labs, Judah was a Senior Software Engineer, building distributed APIs, containerized applications, and automated pipelines in C# and Go. He also worked on WhiteBox, a temporal debugger that provides real-time code insights, where he helped design a new systems programming language for live programming.
Judah joins with a clear motivation:
“Zcash is one of the most important technologies out there. Being able to contribute to it alongside everyone at Shielded Labs is incredibly exciting.”
His addition strengthens Shielded Labs’ growing team and reinforces its mission to deliver meaningful, reliable improvements to the Zcash ecosystem.
Welcome aboard, Judah! 👏
——
ZCG | Meeting Minutes - 10-13-2025
Attendance:
Alex (FPF Resource, Notetaker)
Open Grant Proposals
🔹 Zcash YouTube Promotional Videos | $15,613
Goal: Produce daily YouTube videos to build awareness and enthusiasm for Zcash through consistent, engaging content.
ZCG Feedback: Members appreciated the applicant’s efforts but felt the proposal was unnecessary given the current wave of organic marketing and community content.
Status: ❌ Rejected.
🔹 ZeWIF Error Handling | $4,500
Goal: Fund retroactive updates to ZeWIF and related Blockchain Commons crates for improved error handling and maintainability.
ZCG Feedback: Members agreed the work was valuable and approved reimbursement, noting that any future retroactive funding should be discussed in advance.
Status: ✅ Approved.
🔹 Zcash Awareness Campaign on Snapchat | $13,500
Goal: Introduce Zcash to new audiences on Snapchat through interactive storytelling, AR filters, and educational content.
ZCG Feedback: Members agreed this mirrored the YouTube proposal and lacked sufficient justification or measurable impact.
Status: ❌ Rejected.
🔹 Zcash React Native | $79,200
Goal: Develop a full-featured React Native SDK for shielded Zcash mobile applications.
ZCG Feedback: Still under review as members gather more information on React Native adoption and transition pathways.
Status: ⏳ Remains open.
🔹 Coin Voting: Maintenance & Improvements | $314,000
Goal: Fund one year of maintenance and UX improvements for the Zcash Coin Voting System to enhance accessibility and reliability.
ZCG Feedback: Jason will follow up with Hahn for milestone details and grant structure clarification.
Status: ⏳ Remains open.
🔹 Zingo Labs at Edge City Patagonia | $77,174.65
Goal: Represent Zcash at Edge City Patagonia and DevConnect Buenos Aires to promote development and collaboration.
ZCG Feedback: Members praised Zingo Labs’ contributions but viewed this request as excessive and not the most efficient way to support recruitment or outreach at this stage.
Status: ❌ Rejected.
🔹 Fastnode – Zcash Public Nodes | $50,000
Goal: Deploy free, high-availability public RPC endpoints to strengthen network accessibility.
ZCG Feedback: Members felt this was unnecessary at the proposed cost, as developers already maintain their own nodes or use explorer APIs effectively.
Status: ❌ Rejected.
🔹 iCert: Certificate Authority for Decentralized Web | $30,000
Goal: Build a decentralized, privacy-preserving certificate authority using zero-knowledge proofs.
ZCG Feedback: Members noted that lack of browser compatibility makes this impractical for real-world use.
Status: ❌ Rejected.
🔹 Professional Development (English & Spanish Programs) | $48,000 each
Goal: Fund year-long language immersion programs for Zingo Labs developers to enhance cross-cultural communication and expand outreach.
ZCG Feedback: Both proposals were deemed out of scope for ZCG funding.
Status: ❌ Rejected.
🔹 Global Ambassador Nigeria – Elzz | $6,690
Goal: Strengthen Zcash’s visibility in Nigeria through education, online engagement, and local meetups.
ZCG Feedback: Members emphasized stricter evaluation for new applicants and required proven track records within the ecosystem before approving ambassador grants.
Status: ❌ Rejected.
🔹 Zcash Indian Ambassador Initiative | $26,500
Goal: Launch a Zcash India chapter to drive adoption and awareness through localized education and outreach.
ZCG Feedback: Similar to other ambassador proposals, members highlighted the need for demonstrated prior contributions to the Zcash ecosystem before approval.
Status: ❌ Rejected.
Additional Follow-Ups
Web3Privacy Conference
- ZCG is organizing sponsorship. Several members and community participants are expected to attend.
FPF Support Agreement
- ZCG approved a one-year extension of FPF’s support agreement under the same terms as the original.
Treasury Hedging
- ZCG instructed FPF to hedge an additional $850,000 worth of ZEC to strengthen USD reserves. Treasury operations will continue to be reviewed regularly in cooperation with FPF.
Z3 Development Update — October 10th
Zcash continues to capture attention. All eyes are on the project, and the Z3 team has shared another round of exciting updates across their ongoing development efforts.
Outreach
Status: Resumed ✅
The team has resumed outreach efforts, reaching out to several exchanges regarding the Zcashd 6.10.0 release. They are also preparing for a combined outreach initiative once Zebra 3 is launched, inviting Zcashd clients to explore both Zebra and Z3 together. This coordinated effort aims to simplify communication and adoption across the ecosystem.
Zebra
The Zebra team is finalizing the Zebra 3.0.0 release, which includes Network Upgrade 6.1 (NU6.1) and numerous fixes and improvements. The release is expected between today and Tuesday.
Meanwhile, Gustavo has been contributing extensively to the Z3 infrastructure repository, available on GitHub at ZcashFoundation/z3. This repository serves as the foundation for unifying Zebra, Zaino, and Zallet into a cohesive system.
The Zebra developers are also completing work on shielded coinbase, a feature that will significantly reduce Zaino’s testing time once integrated. They are currently waiting for their code to be merged into librustzcash, under add(zcash_primitives): Support constructing coinbase transactions.
Zaino (ZingoLabs)
Status: In Progress 🚧
The Zaino team continues to overhaul their tooling across the platform. Support for block explorer RPCs is progressing quickly, with many tasks already completed on the project board. They are expected to share new milestone announcements soon as development advances.
Zallet (Full Node Wallet)
Status: Alpha Released ✅
Following the NU 6.1 release for Zcashd, development on Zallet has resumed. The team is implementing RPC authentication, along with several completed improvements such as fixing JSON-RPC error responses.
The Zallet Alpha release remains ongoing, and the Maya team has begun evaluating it. Feedback from their review is expected soon.
For those looking to explore the project in more detail, The Zallet Book continues to be the main reference resource.
Block Explorer Support
Status: Testing 🧪
Testing is underway for block explorer support, marking another step forward in expanding integration and visibility within the Zcash ecosystem.
Overall, the Z3 development teams continue to demonstrate consistent progress across all fronts, from infrastructure to user tools, setting the stage for an exciting phase of growth for Zcash and its supporting technologies. ⚡