Arborist Call #102 | R&D Summary (May 29, 2025)
Core Stack Updates, Research and Implementation Updates & Open Announcements & Discussion.
The Zcash Arborist Calls are bi-weekly protocol development meetings focused on tracking upcoming protocol deployment logistics, consensus node implementation issues, and protocol research.
This summary focuses on the last call that took place on 05/29/2025
Zebra is progressing steadily: major focus remains on building out RPC support for a smooth zcashd deprecation. Work is also ongoing to support shielded coinbase transactions and transition Python test coverage to the new Z3 stack.
Zebra team kicked off initial work on the next protocol milestone and began containerizing the Z3 stack with Docker, also improved the hotfix release process to make future patches smoother and more efficient.
Big Strides on the Zcash Dev Front!
Zallet testing uncovered fresh bugs in Zebra & Zaino, now patched. With each round, the stack gets sharper. Also, Zallet’s evolving how transactions are viewed—favoring pre-decrypted wallet data for faster, more consistent insights.
Tachyon R&D sprint: Complete. Three full days on-site with Sean Bowe yielded breakthroughs and new questions. But the result? A turbocharged understanding across the team.
Zcash’s Rust backend is gaining support for HTTP GET/POST over Tor, SDKs can now fetch exchange rates, or hit private APIs, directly and anonymously. More privacy tools for builders, baked right in.
Progress continues on Zaino Fix for error propagation is nearly ready to merge Local cache improvements underway RPC compatibility is being rigorously tested via zcashd RPC test suite.
Excavator V0 is here—a command-line utility to extract ZEC from legacy wallet files Ideal for rescuing funds from old or unused wallets. Community testing is encouraged to help surface bugs and improve support for edge cases.
@ZcashFoundation is wrapping up final RPC components and ramping up testing of the new stack. Alfredo has been focusing on RPC test integration, while Gustavo is working to package the full stack into a unified Docker image.
Ready to assist with Zaino and Zallet features.
@Pacu is making progress on the Block Explorer! It’s up and running and will soon be tested against Zebra and Zaino. This will be an important tool for navigating and debugging the evolving Zcash stack.
Work is underway to implement importprivkey in Zallet mirroring Zcashd's wallet behavior.
This will unblock key RPC test support and allow private key imports directly into the wallet backend, once backend changes from PR 152 are finalized.
They’ve opened a scoped PR to the Zcash ZIPs repo, fixing terminology as most ZSA-related content is already merged.
Work continues with a new Halo2 PR, laying foundational changes for ZSA. It’s been reviewed by Daira Emma, pending final reviews from str4d & Kris.
Orchard ZSA implementation is under review with ECC, while the first Zebra PR enabling v6 ZSA transaction verification is live for feedback.
Though not yet mergeable, it supports iterative refinement as we align on specs and integration with @ElectricCoinCo and @ZcashFoundation.
Mariusz rebased the Zebra PR for ZIP 243, now blocked pending reviews of the Librustzcash and Zcash test vector PRs. Once merged, and with proper feature flagging, Zebra’s ZIP 233 implementation can move forward.
There’s no set activation height yet for NU7. Decisions on what goes into NU7 will be made well before that point. Testnet changes can still be rolled back if issues are found.
Major Milestone: a one-way connection from the proof-of-stake chain to the proof-of-work chain. PoW block hashes are now finalized and recorded in PoS block headers using BFT consensus. A successful demo ran with real participants and a proof-of-authority setup.
With 16 million ZEC already mined, Crosslink is also working on tokenomics, focusing on delegation, staking, and slashing. A simple prototype is in the works to collect early feedback on design choices.
