Zcash Shielded News | Vol. 27
ZCG - Meeting Minutes 14th, FPF Q1 Report 2025, ZF, ECC, Shielded Labs & ZecHub | Governance Progress on Grant Decision, The Times They Are A-Changin - ECC Updates & Z3 Updates
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
On April 14th, the Zcash Community Grants held another one of its meetings to vote on the most recent grants submitted in the past few days.
Here is a summary of what was discussed.
Attendance: 🗣️
GGuy (not present, voted async)
Alex (FPF Resource, Notetaker)
Open Grants Proposals
Vergara Technologies, led by Pitmutt, requested $91,700 to add Frost multi-sig and Keystone hardware wallet support to the Zenith Full Node Wallet. While the proposal was recognized as valuable, ZCG members unanimously rejected it, citing current budget constraints and lower prioritization despite appreciation for Pitmutt’s work. They suggested it could be reconsidered in the future if funding allows.
Zingo Labs🍀requested $151,240 for the Zaino project to modernize Zcash infrastructure by replacing legacy C++ components with Rust, improving efficiency and supporting light wallets. The proposal includes collaboration with key ecosystem players and covers three months of full-time development. ZCG members unanimously approved the grant, praising Zingo's contributions and reliable delivery.
Zcash Open Learning Lab Space ❌
Onose Oghenevwogaga requested $15,000 to launch the Zcash Open Learning Lab in Nigeria, aiming to support Web3 developers and grow Zcash adoption through events and co-working space. ZCG members unanimously rejected the proposal, citing high risk, limited community engagement, and concerns about sustainability. They suggested smaller-scale involvement via ZecHub as a better starting point.
Unified Grant Tracking Dashboard ❌
A $21,600 proposal for a Grant Tracking Dashboard aimed at improving transparency and oversight of Zcash-funded projects was unanimously rejected by ZCG members. While the idea was appreciated, members felt existing tools are sufficient for now and the scale and timing of the proposal were not justified.
Upgrade BTCPayServer Zcash Plugin ✅
A $21,600 grant to fix and publish an updated Zcash BTCPayServer plugin, including Sapling support, was unanimously approved by ZCG members. The plugin is seen as a high-priority integration with interest from projects like Nym and Tor, and will provide a practical solution for merchants to accept Zcash payments.
Zondax is requesting $95,000 to integrate the new Zcash Ledger Shielded app with Ledger Live, initially focusing on transparent transaction support. Shielded transaction integration may follow in a future phase. The ZCG is still deliberating on the proposal, with a decision pending.
PIXX ❌
Pixx requested $100,000 to develop a privacy-focused DeFi platform using Zcash’s zk-SNARK technology for private investing, lending, and asset tokenization. ZCG members unanimously rejected the proposal, citing lack of clarity, insufficient team background, and concerns over the full funding request as startup capital.
The Financial Privacy Foundation (FPF) aims to support unincorporated and ad-hoc groups in the cryptocurrency space—especially those focused on privacy protocols—by providing essential operational and financial management services. These groups often lack the resources to handle administrative tasks, and FPF offers a comprehensive organizational structure to help them scale and focus on their core missions. FPF’s broader goal is to promote financial privacy and empower communities through education and infrastructure support.
FPF is an independent Cayman Islands incorporated not-for-profit foundation administered and governed by a board of directors and a Supervisor (Cayman required).
Here is what FPF have been doing over the last months:
ZecHub Bounty Project
FPF administers weekly bounty payments for ZecHub, handling the payouts, due diligence, and accounting. ZecHub retains full control over the bounty program’s strategy and decisions on recipients, while FPF provides backend support.
In Q1 2025, ZecHub received 1,050 ZEC (worth $51,744 USD) for their ZCG grant. As per the grant terms, 50 ZEC (valued at $2,464 USD) was donated to FPF for its administrative support to ZecHub.
During this period, FPF distributed 86 payments to 42 unique bounty recipients as part of ZecHub’s ongoing contributor rewards program.
Zcash Community Grants (ZCG)
In July 2024, the Zcash community approved ZIP 1015, allocating 8% of the block subsidy to the Financial Privacy Foundation (FPF). Starting at block 2,726,400 (mid-November 2024), FPF will manage these funds to support the Zcash Community Grants Committee (ZCG) and cover administrative expenses related to the program.
from ZF to FPF, assisting ZCG in transitioning their grants platform from Submittable to GitHub, and implementing bookkeeping and fund-tracking systems to meet the transparency and accountability standards set forth in ZIP 1015.
FPF provides the following services to ZCG:
Administrative Support (Comprehensive support for grantmaking activities, election process management, etc.)
Finance Support (Treasury management, accounting services, financial reporting, etc.)
Community Activities Support (Note taking, outreach, general communication, etc.)
Strategic Support (Research, brainstorm input, etc.)
In addition, during Q1:
FPF provided a $75,000 matching donation to ZCG for the Community Funding program
FPF conducted onboarding for the two new ZCG members
FPF drafted and posted a new Note Taker RFP and subsequently drafted an IC Agreement for the winning respondent.
ZCG statistics:
FPF Financial Spotlight
Bounty Payments.
Includes grants, discretionary fund expenses, trading fees and ZCG member compensation,
In November 2025, the current Zcash Dev Fund, established under ZIP 1015, will expire, and 100% of block rewards will be allocated to miners unless a new Dev Fund is implemented. To assess community support for a new funding model, a ZCAP poll has been launched, asking for feedback on various proposals. The poll also includes a question about prioritizing the Dev Fund extension, even if it delays NU7. The results will guide future decisions but are advisory. The poll closes on May 1, 2025, with results expected by May 5th.
Below is a summary of the five proposals:
Community and Coinholder (C&C) Funding Model (C&C) :
Allocates 8% of block rewards to ZCG and 12% to a Coinholder-Controlled Fund, active until the third halving in November 2028. It gives ZCG and coinholders distinct decision-making roles, with grants from the coinholder fund requiring 420,000 ZEC to be approved. For more information, see this link.
Community-Governed Funding Model: Allocates 8% to ZCG and 12% to a ZCAP-Controlled Fund managed by the Zcash Foundation. It prioritizes community consensus, with a 50% participation threshold for ZCAP voting, and secures funds in a multisig wallet. For more information, see this link.
Pure Coinholder Funding Model: Allocates 20% of block rewards to a Coinholder-Controlled Fund, active until the third halving. Grants require 420,000 ZEC for approval and are managed exclusively by coinholder voting. For more information, see this link.
Pure ZCAP Funding Model: Allocates 20% of block rewards to a ZCAP-Controlled Fund managed by the Zcash Foundation. All funding decisions are made by ZCAP, with a 50% participation threshold, and funds are held in a multisig wallet. For more information, see this link.
Zcash Governance Bloc (zBloc): Allocates 20% of block rewards to a Community Fund split into Large and Minor Grant pools. Governance is shared across constituencies like Coinholders, ECC, and ZF, each with adjustable voting power and thresholds. For more information, see this link.
In recent posts, we saw that the three entities Zcash Foundation, Electric Coin Company, and Shielded Labs supported the Community & CoinHolder option.
Polls were assigned to members of ZCAP, ZAC, and ZecHub DAO so they can vote and, consequently, help in the final decision of which funding model the protocol will use.
Still on this topic, it's worth noting that on Monday (04/20), the Zcash Foundation announced the launch of the "Coinholder Polling on Governance & Funding" vote.
The poll includes two questions:
The first asks which Dev Fund proposal you support, or whether you believe the Dev Fund should end and all block rewards should go to miners. Read more about the proposals
The second asks whether you support prioritizing a new Dev Fund and the implementation of a new funding model, even if doing so delays NU7.
Voting is open until Thursday, May 1 at 11:59 PM UTC. Eligible participants must have moved ZEC into the Orchard pool during the registration period. Voting is conducted via the Coin Voting 2.0 app, which assigns votes based on ZEC holdings and uses a decentralized, tamper-resistant system.
Minimum amount of ZEC needed to vote?
you’ll need at least 0.01 ZEC to vote.🙂
🔗 Check out all the details here
This week, Josh faced personal challenges, including health issues and fatigue, but found strength and renewal through self-reflection during Holy Week.
Despite the ongoing struggles in their work with ECC on Zcash, they feel honored to contribute to a cause with immense impact. Josh found inspiration in the growing support for Zcash, particularly after a viral tweet from Zooko, as well as backing from influential figures like Barry Silbert and Vitalik Buterin.
Josh also drew strength from the song "The Times They Are A-Changin’," feeling renewed in their conviction to bring about change.
This week's progress from ECC:
Zashi
📱| Zashi Design
Continued work on Crosschain Payments designs
Progressed on Multi-Account support designs
Small ad hoc product and engineering requested edits
Finalizing Spendable Balance designs and adding dark theme designs
🧑💻| Q&A and Dev Support
User Support
QA & Testing
Comms & Socials
Community Management
🍎| Zashi iOS
📈Unique Installs: 7.4k
⬇️Total Downloads: 8.86k
⭐AppStore Rating: 4.9*
SDK
FFI Scan and recovery progress adopted
TOR APIs implemented
TOR APIs adopted in the interface with fallback option to previous LightWalletd service
Zashi 0.6.3-x Internal
Adopted SDK with TOR and new recovery progress reporting
Implemented new Spendable component with smart logic
Spendable Balance bottom sheet implemented with custom dynamic height handling for updates
Shielding processing refactored to have one source of truth with state handling in the root of Zashi
🤖| Zashi Android
📈Total Install Base: 3.76k
⬇️Total Installs (incl. Open Beta): 17.4k
⭐PlayStore Rating: 4.519*
ECC made significant progress this week including merging the block height estimation logic, advancing recovery progress reporting in the SDK, and implementing a new crash reporting opt-in/out screen in Zashi.
They worked on TOR networking calls, added global error handling, improved syncing and shielding error UIs, and introduced a new Spendable Balance component and bottom sheet.
The team also aligned design updates with iOS standards and addressed multiple bugs and performance issues.
🦓| Zcash Core
ECC has conducted a thorough review of QEDit's pull requests across the sinsemilla, halo2, and orchard repositories. While additional work remains, the ZSA-related pull requests are showing steady progress.
ECC released Zcashd 6.2.0 and engaged with ecosystem partners about related API deprecations. These discussions will help guide the development of zallet interfaces to maintain service continuity.
Str4d did a lot of work updating dependencies in the zkcrypto stack to facilitate the use of some updated core Rust libraries requested by several projects in the Rust cryptography community.
ECC continued integrating the Blockchain Commons ZeWIF format into zallet, enabling wallet imports from the zcashd wallet.dat format. They are also preparing pull requests to enhance ZeWIF by resolving compatibility issues and optimizing data encoding for wallet developers.
Kris provided community support for ruzcash's TypeScript library for parsing Unified Addresses and for Pacu's PR to add "send max" functionality to the zcash_client_backend wallet library, so that this functionality can be integrated into all the wallets that use the ECC wallet stack.
ECC provided support for enabling transaction submission and retrieval via TOR in the ECC wallet SDKs and Zashi.
zallet now supports using multiple mnemonic seeds and multiple accounts associated with each mnemonic seed.
ECC found a couple of issues in Zaino and Zebrad, and where appropriate submitted PRs to fix them:
🌐| Other
Polling on Zcash funding governance is now underway and will run until March 1st. The Community & Coinholder (C&C) model has received endorsements from ECC, Shielded Labs, the Zcash Foundation, and Zancas from Zingo Labs.
Josh participated in a ZecHub-hosted town hall to discuss funding governance models.
Josh met with Rhea team to get introduced and discuss future plans.
Josh had great conversations with @ebfull and @alchemyDC about areas for increased alignment and collaboration across the ecosystem.
Another week, another update from Pacu on Z3.
Check out the summary of what was published on the forum and done this week below:
🚀 | Zcashd 6.2.0 Deployment
Node operators need to add
i-am-aware-zcashd-will-be-replaced-by-zebrad-and-zallet-in-2025=1to their node configuration.
Enable deprecated RPCs manually using the
allowdeprecatedparameter in thezcashd.conffile to support older RPCs.
🦓 | Zebra Project Roadmap
ZF engineering team is progressing with tech debt and CI issues, improving development infrastructure.
Several changes are under review for Zcashd deprecation support, including Remote ReadStateService for Zaino and Zallet.
7 out of 9 items in the Zebra review queue relate to Zcashd deprecation, showing commitment to ecosystem support.
🛠️ | Zaino (ZingoLabs)
Status: Almost back on track!
The “Complete Zaino” grant from @ZCG has been approved.
Milestone 3 is in progress, including:
Implementing RemoteReadStateService using Hyper wrapper.
Developing lightwallet service using ReadStateService instead of JSONRPC.
Handling emergent functionalities from milestone 2.
Zec.Rocks has begun rolling out Zaino servers, with integration issues being addressed efficiently.
In-Memory backend review is pending—need reviewers for PR.
💻 | Zallet Full Node Wallet
Status: Delayed but catching up!
ECC reports a 2-month deviation from the original schedule.
Active development of RPCs and wallet.dat migration using ZeWIF by @nuttycom.
Merged features:
Support for storing pre-BIP39 zcashd HD seed data.
Documented and tested setup for new wallets.
In review:
z_sendmany, importing existing accounts, andgettransaction/z_viewtransactionRPCs.Contributors are welcome to help with RPC implementation.
💡| Wallet Export Format (ZeWIF)
Status: On-track
ZeWIF held its fourth meeting, with collaboration and code walkthroughs.
Video from meeting: Watch here.
Team is looking for PRs from the community to refine wallet content abstractions.
Current work is updated on the ZeWIF page.
⚙️ Regtest Mode
Status: First round of review comments addressed.
Addressing review comments on the Regtest PR.