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: Slow Start 💡
Zcash launched with a “slow start,” a unique safety feature that gradually increased block rewards over the first 20,000 blocks (~34 days).
This design ensured that if any critical bug appeared at launch, only a small amount of ZEC would exist, limiting the impact and protecting the network during its most vulnerable phase.
📩 IN TODAY’S EDITION 🌳 Gemini Now Supports Orchard Shielded Transactions • Gemini now enables direct Orchard withdrawals, giving Zashi and Keystone users seamless, private transfers. 🔐 Ledger & Shielded ZEC Integration Update • Ledger signed the updated grant terms and is finalizing its application while coordinating technical details with ECC. 🧭 Alex Bornstein Appointed Executive Director | Zcash Foundation • The ZF officially named Alex Bornstein as Executive Director, bringing stable leadership for the next phase of growth. 🌐 Introducing the New ZFND.org • ZF launched a fully redesigned, mobile-first website with clearer navigation and improved transparency. 🛠️ Widening the Aperture | ECC Update • ECC highlights ongoing progress in Zashi, Zcash Core, and ecosystem coordination toward frictionless encrypted money. 
A few days ago, the Zcash Foundation has officially appointed Alex Bornstein as Executive Director, effective November 1, 2025, marking a new chapter for the organization.
Alex has served as Interim Executive Director since March, guiding ZF through a critical period of renewed coordination, transparency, and community trust. During his interim leadership, he strengthened strategic partnerships, refined ZF’s operational focus, and helped re-energize collaboration across the Zcash ecosystem. The Board noted that Alex’s clarity, communication, and long-term vision made him the clear choice to lead ZF forward.
His leadership philosophy centers on coordination, communication, and execution, an approach that has already shaped a more cohesive internal culture and positioned the Foundation for long-term impact.
Looking ahead, he outlined an ambitious vision: unified action across the ecosystem, including ECC, Shielded Labs, ZCG, QEDIT, ZecHub, & Global Contributors, to drive the next generation of privacy technology.
Under Alex’s direction, ZF will focus on several key priorities in the coming months: securing new funding sources beyond the Zcash ecosystem, expanding adoption of Zebra as the primary node implementation, supporting the deprecation of zcashd, growing the Shielded Aid Initiative, and executing the Foundation’s 2026 event strategy.
With Alex officially at the helm, the Zcash Foundation enters a phase of stable, strategic leadership, unified around a shared commitment to meaningful, measurable progress in privacy technology.
Still on the topic of ZF, the team launched its completely redesigned website, marking an important update for the community.
The previous version of zfnd.org had served the organization for years, but it was built during a time when desktop browsing was the norm and most of the Foundation’s transparency was spread across blog posts and GitHub activity. While functional, the old site made it harder for visitors to clearly understand ZF’s structure, initiatives, and opportunities for participation.
The new zfnd.org introduces a much more modern experience.
Built with a mobile-first approach, the redesigned website is smoother, faster, and more intuitive across devices. Navigation has been simplified, information is easier to find, and the updated project pages offer a clearer and more transparent view of the Foundation’s ongoing work, from engineering and research to ecosystem coordination and grants.
Visitors can now more easily:
Explore the Foundation’s current projects and long-term roadmap
Connect with members of the ZF team
Learn how to support open, privacy-preserving financial networks
Follow updates about Zcash and the broader ecosystem
This redesign reflects the Foundation’s ongoing commitment to transparency, accessibility, and community engagement. More than a visual update, it represents a step toward making ZF’s work easier to understand and more accessible to everyone.
Check it out → https://zfnd.org
About eight days ago, Jason McGee (Shielded Labs & ZCG) shared a new update on the forum regarding the Ledger + Shielded ZEC integration. According to his post, after final discussions with FPF, the revised grant terms were officially signed, giving the project a clearly defined scope. With that in place, Ledger is now drafting the formal grant application, aiming to finish it by the end of the week, run an internal review, and then share it for community feedback before submission.
On the technical side, Ledger’s architecture team is in active discussions with ECC to determine the best approach for blockchain synchronization and shielded proof creation, two essential components for enabling full shielded ZEC support on Ledger devices.
With these steps aligned and the grant now signed, the integration is moving into a more concrete and coordinated phase. More updates are expected as the application progresses and the engineering work continues.
Gemini has officially added support for Orchard, Zcash’s most advanced privacy protocol, becoming the first major exchange to enable withdrawals directly into the newest shielded pool. This upgrade builds on Gemini’s earlier rollout of Unified Addresses and fixes long-standing friction for users, especially those using Keystone hardware wallets.
Previously, Gemini supported only Sapling withdrawals, which often caused issues when a Unified Address didn’t include a Sapling receiver. With Orchard now fully integrated, Gemini automatically selects the strongest shielded option inside the UA, making withdrawals seamless for both Zashi and Keystone users, no more invalid address errors.
This update also highlights Gemini’s unique position in the ecosystem. While every other major exchange still limits users to transparent-only withdrawals, Gemini continues to invest in real privacy infrastructure. Supporting shielded ZEC requires deeper engineering work, and Gemini remains the only exchange aligned with modern Zcash privacy standards.
This week, ECC continued widening its “aperture” to bring private, frictionless, global money to everyone through Zcash & Zashi, without losing focus on develivering a world-class user experience.
🔎 Diving into ECC updates
Highlights
Access to Shielded ZEC is easier than ever thanks to Near Intents, Maya & Gemini support for Orchard. 🌳
The market is showing increasing demand for encrypted money, and Zcash is at an inflection point.
ECC remains focused on usability, performance, security and removing friction in Zashi.
Zashi Updates
Completed:
Tested ephemeral transparent address prototype (now deprioritized).,
Released Zashi 2.4.7 with fixes, hidden fund discovery, and improvements.,
Continued UI/UX refinements and explored deeper redesigns.,
Started work on Zashi 2.4.8.
Next Steps:
Keep developing 2.4.8: more fixes + Keystone Resync/Disconnect.,
Finalize designs for Transparent Address Rotation, Ledger support and multi-account,
Finalize Duress/Decoy Wallet designs.
Zashi | Adoption Numbers
🍎 | IOS: 27.6k (3.9k increase)
🤖 | Android: 32.4k (3k increase)
🔁 | Swap volume (to date): 410k ZEC (+157k) | Avg volume per day (to date): 7.9k ZEC (-.5k)
Zcash Core 🦓
Completed:
Ephemeral address updates merged to librustzcash + SDKs.
Account deletion handling merged.
Released Zallet 0.1.0-alpha-2.
Reviewed & merged ZIP 321 for ZSA paymenet requests.
Improved ZIPs CI.
Began work on ZIP macro support.
Next Steps:
Review trasnparent i/O additions to lightwalletd.
Orchard crate review.
Zashi integration/testing for ephemeral addresses.
Keystone PS2H integration.
Continue Zallet development, incl. coinbase support.
Other 🌐
Internal organization improvements in progress.
ECC participated in BA’s Privacy Technology Hill Day.
Interviews for Zashi Support & CM and Zashi Partnerships** roles.
Coordination w Gemini on their orchard announcement.