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: NU6.1 Activation
Yesterday, October 28th, marked Zcash’s 9th anniversary, nine years since the launch of one of the first cryptocurrencies to bring zero-knowledge proofs (zk-SNARKs) to life.
Since its debut in 2016, Zcash has championed financial privacy, pioneering innovations like shielded transactions and unified addresses. As it enters its 10th year, the community continues building toward global scalability, accessibility, and stronger privacy for all.
IN TODAY’S EDITION 🌐 Building Momentum - ECC Updates 🦓 Zebra 3.0.0 RC.0 Release 🛠️ Z3 (Zcashd Deprecation) 24th 🏗️ Shielded Labs - Crosslink #4 Milestone Recording 🥳 Zcash 9th Birthday Party + Poker Tournament + Recording
Zcash is accelerating, powered by ECC’s renewed push for scale, usability, and global reach.
Project Tachyon is driving scalability, while the legacy consensus system will be replaced by Zebrad, Zallet, and Zaino by 2026 for greater speed and security.
ECC is enhancing Zashi and developing Zashi Vault to simplify shielded ZEC use, and expanding with more DEXs, bridges, and wallet integrations.
With new hires across engineering and security, ECC is rallying the community to keep the flywheel turning building unstoppable, private money together.
🔎 Diving into ECC updates
Zashi
Released: Zashi 2.4.4 & 2.4.5 are live with bug fixes and automatic swap/payment status updates. The team also reviewed Knowledge Base designs and improved error handling.
In Progress: Interviews are underway for a Zashi Support/Community Manager, while the Core Team is implementing Ephemeral Transparent Addresses, the top development priority.
Coming Soon: Final reviews are next for Transparent Address Rotation, Ledger hardware wallet, and Multi-Account features, alongside updates to Zashi Reset, Keystone fixes, and a new Duress/Decoy Wallet for enhanced security.
Zashi | Adoption Numbers
IOS
Unique Installs: 18.9k (1.4k increase)
Total Downloads: 22k (1.6k increase)
AppStore Rating: 4.9* (unchanged) ★
🤖 Android
Total Install Base: 7.83k (0.6k increase)
Total Installs (incl. Open Beta): 28.5k (1.2k increase)
PlayStore Rating: 4.25* (-0.064) ★
🔄 Swap Analytics
Swap volume (to date): 253k ZEC
Avg volume per day (to date): 6k ZEC
Zcash Core 🦓
Released:
Additional Zashi bug fixes completed for mempool detection, confirmation updates, and “send max” functionality, all ready for the next Zashi release.
Support for transparent address rotation has been merged into core repos but will be included in the following release to prioritize stability and ephemeral fund detection.
The FROST key generation spec is finalized and ready for review.
In Progress:
Final review underway for P2SH multisig support and Qedit Orchard PR.
Development continues on account deletion for zcash_client_sqlite and on marking received transactions as trusted to speed up spending confirmations.
Coming Soon:
Preparing a draft ZIP for key rotation (covering ZSA issuance and FROST multisig lockbox keys) for inclusion in NU7, plus initial work on NU7 protocol spec changes.
Starting development of a DSL to simplify test creation and maintenance.
Other 🌐
Began 2026 budgeting and projections.
ECC's finalizing and will publish a Q4 ECC roadmap soon.
A few days ago, the Zcash Foundation announced the release of Zebra 3.0.0-rc.0, the latest release candidate ahead of the Zcash Network Upgrade 6.1 (NU6.1). This update includes the mainnet activation height for NU6.1, set for block 3,146,400. If no major issues are found, a final version will be published before activation.
What’s new 👀
Major upgrades to Zebra’s CI and Docker setup, bringing performance improvements and easier deployment.
Migration to a layered configuration system (config.rs), standardizing infrastructure and updating environment variables — scripts using the old names must be adjusted.
Simplified Docker entrypoint, no longer generating zebrad.toml or supporting legacy variables.
Block template generation is now part of the default build, removing the getblocktemplate-rpcs feature flag.
Note: Support for this release expires before NU6.1 activation, node operators are encouraged to test and prepare for the final release soon.
The Crosslink Milestone #4 Workshop showcased major progress toward implementing a Hybrid Proof-of-Work / Proof-of-Stake consensus for Zcash. Led by Shielded Labs, the session introduced an updated prototype emphasizing accessibility and reliability.
The new TenderLink Byzantine Fault Tolerance layer demonstrated stable finalization and resilience, while network stability and configuration were streamlined through zero-setup participation and protected state handling.
Attendees, about eight active participants, successfully joined the validator roster, staked points, and visualized chain activity in real time using the built-in visualizer.
The team focused on node synchronization, debugging, and block finalization under varying conditions, addressing issues like timing mismatches and consensus stalls.
Each finalized PoW block distributed 6,000 points proportional to stake, confirming the reward system’s accuracy.
Community feedback centered on improved usability and visualization clarity, with further tuning planned for synchronization and performance in upcoming milestones.
Price fluctuates, but the shielded pools keep growing, and the teams continue building with steady momentum.
Released:
Zebra 3.0.0 officially launched 🎉 includes continued work on Zcashd deprecation and Orchard shielded coinbase support.
Zallet (Full Node Wallet) reached Alpha Release with Cookie authentication added. The team is inviting testers with Zcash.dat files on testnet to try the migration path.
In Progress:
Outreach: NU6.1 community outreach has resumed; also encouraging users to test Zallet Alpha.
Zaino (ZingoLabs): Chain index nearing completion and adopting Zebra 3.0.0. New team member Oscar Pepper (Pepper Sync) joins to support chain index work. Development and reviews continue for Block Explorer RPC integration.
ECC: Focusing on Zashi bug fixes and NU7 PR reviews in the Orchard crate.
Coming Soon:
Block Explorer Support: Three RPCs left to finalize —
gettxoutsetinfo
getblockdeltas
getaddressdeltas
Work is also progressing on integrating Zebra + Zaino into the Zcash Block Explorer, with promising test results despite performance tuning ahead.
The ecosystem continues strong collaboration, Zebra, Zaino, Zallet, and ECC all pushing toward NU7 readiness, smoother tooling, and expanding shielded adoption.
Yesterday marked the 9th Anniversary of Zcash and what better way to celebrate than together as a community?
We kicked off the day with a lively poker tournament that brought together over 50 players from around the world.
Everyone had the chance to compete, connect, and enjoy the event in the Zcash Global server’s voice chat, accompanied by music from our community DJs, Dismad and Kenzo. For those who were not familiar with poker, we prepared three rounds of Gartic with a Zcash theme.
Participants had to draw and guess topics related to our ecosystem, including crosslink, zebrad, halo2, and other elements that make up the Zcash world. These events lasted around two to three hours and were filled with fun, laughter, and friendly competition.
Each event featured rewards for the top participants:
Poker 🎲
1st Prize - Keystone Hardware Wallet + 1 ZEC
2nd Prize - Zcash Hoodie + 0.5 ZEC
3rd Prize - Zcash T-Shirt + 0.25 ZEC
Gartic 🎨
- 0.5 divided for 3 winners: Zancho, Andy, Kellyjoe
Later in the day, we hosted an engaging X Spaces session with more than 250 participants to reflect on Zcash’s challenges, achievements and resilience over the years including the Sandblasting attack, exchange delistings, and other milestones we’ve successfully overcome as a community.
We were honored to have special guests: Josh from ECC, Alex from Zcash Foundation, Zooko and Jason McGee from Shielded Labs, Sean Bowe from Project Tachyon, as well as several members of the Zcash community who joined us on stage.
It was a day of celebration, connection, and reflection, a reminder of how far we’ve come and the strength of the Zcash community as we continue to build a more private and resilient financial future together.