Zcash Shielded News | Vol.11
New Zingo Wallet Update, Zebra 4.2.0 is live, ZCG | Meeting Minutes 3/16/26, Boostrap: Q4 2025 Retroactive Grant Disbursement and Governance, Inevitable. ZODL Update and more
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 💡
Zcomm 2026 is a virtual Zcash community-building event focused less on protocol updates and more on the “how” of growing communities, how to educate, organize, and engage.
The first edition took place yesterday, and you can already check out the presentations here
📩 In today’s edition:
🟢 New Zingo Update
• Zingo released a new update with wallet improvements and continued development progress
🦓 Zebra 4.2.0 is live!
• Zcash Foundation announced Zebra 4.2.0, adding new RPC functionality, stronger mempool policy compliance, and deeper state-querying capabilities.
👥 ZCG | Meeting Minutes 3/16/26
• The committee reviewed a new round of grant proposals, approving OneKey’s Zcash hardware wallet integration and a marketing initiative at ETHCC + Exxxotica, while declining three other proposals and leaving Wrapped Zcash pending further feedback.
📩 Boostrap: Q4 2025 Retroactive Grant Disbursement and Governance Integrity
• Bootstrap published an open letter challenging the hold on its $2.67M retroactive grant, arguing that the issue raises broader concerns around governance, institutional credibility, and regulatory risk in the Zcash ecosystem.
🚀 Inevitable. ZODL Update.
• Josh framed AI as an accelerating force that will make privacy-preserving digital money increasingly necessary, arguing that Zcash could become essential infrastructure for a future shaped by autonomous agents and digital payments + ZODL Updates
New Zingo Update - Zingo Labs
Zingo, one of the main wallets in the ecosystem, keeps getting better. 💚
Launched in 2022, it quickly stood out by offering a simpler, more accessible interface at a time when many wallets were still highly technical. With support for both Portuguese and Spanish, Zingo became especially popular among users in those language communities.
Now, the Zingo Labs team has introduced several important updates:
new block explorer options in settings;
clear failed transaction status indicators;
a new auto-remit system that retries transactions before marking them as failed;
the option to manually remove failed transactions from the history;
birthday validation to prevent critical sync errors when restoring a wallet;
an update to ZingoLib 3.0.0;
bug fixes and other minor improvements.
If you have not tried Zingo yet, this is a great time to download the wallet and check out what is new. And of course, feedback always helps, give it a try and share your experience with the team. 🙂
Check it out! 👉 zingolabs.org/zingo
Zebra 4.2.0 is live!
On March 17, ZF announced Zebra 4.2.0, a new release that expands RPC functionality, improves mempool policy compliance, and adds deeper state-querying capabilities.
Among the main updates, Zebra now supports the gettxout RPC method and the new OutputObject response type, allowing direct queries of unspent transparent outputs, an important feature for wallet integrations.
The release also adds support for Founders Reward addresses and pre-Canopy block subsidies in getblocksubsidy. For now, however, Zebra is still waiting on a fix to subtract the Founders’ Reward from the block subsidy so responses can be fully accurate.
Another important change is the introduction of the rpc.discover endpoint, which returns a machine-readable OpenRPC schema for all supported RPC methods. This replaces the previous OpenAPI specification, which was less suited to JSON-RPC APIs, and removes the openapi-generator tool and related Cargo features from zebra-utils.
On the mempool side, Zebra 4.2.0 implements the remaining non-standard transaction filters, bringing its acceptance policy closer to full parity with zcashd.
ZCG | Meeting Minutes 3/16/26
Attendance: Artkor, GGuy, Hanh, Zerodartz & Alex
Wrapped Zcash - Open - $80,000 🟡
Proposal to create WZEC, a fully collateralized ERC-20 version of ZEC for use across Ethereum, Layer 2, and DeFi.
Incrypted Media Support in the CIS Region - Declined - $45,000 🔴
Educational media campaign in Ukrainian and Russian to expand Zcash visibility across the CIS region and Eastern Europe.
Strategic Lobbying and Community Building for Zcash in Japan - Declined - $25,000 🔴
Initiative to expand Zcash adoption in Japan through regulatory education and community building.
OneKey Zcash Hardware Support - Approved - $45,000 🟢
Full Zcash integration, including transparent and shielded transactions, into a OneKey hardware wallet.
Marketing at ETHCC + Exxxotica, Chicago - Approved async - $18,500 🟢
In-person marketing effort to promote Zcash and the Zodl wallet at two spring 2026 events.
Blockwee - Declined - $25,000 🔴
Video coverage proposal focused on documenting Zcash’s presence at EthCC Cannes for marketing and community content.
Q4 2025 Retroactive Grant Disbursement and Governance Integrity
Here is a story that blew up on the forum last week. 🤯
Bootstrap published an open letter to the Zcash community challenging the hold on a roughly $2.67 million retroactive grant approved in the Q4 2025 Coinholder-Directed Retroactive Grants cycle. According to the letter, the grant was approved by coinholders to compensate ECC for work already completed over the previous year, but unlike the other grants from the same cycle, it has not been disbursed.
The letter argues that, under ZIP 1016, a veto should only happen in exceptional cases and must be based on clear legal grounds or concrete risks to users and community values. Bootstrap says it will review any veto rationale against those standards and against its fiduciary obligations as a nonprofit.
The core of the letter is about law and governance. Bootstrap argues that if its approved grant is blocked and the funds remain in the pool, that could end up benefiting a new entity tied to former ECC leaders who are no longer part of the organization. In its view, that could raise regulatory concerns under rules that restrict improper benefits to former insiders of 501(c)(3) nonprofits, while also exposing the broader ecosystem to scrutiny from the IRS and state regulators.
Beyond the legal issue, they argue that the case is also a test of the credibility of the coinholder-directed grants system itself. The argument is that if an approved grant can be withheld outside the framework’s own stated veto criteria, that weakens trust in the process for future applicants, voters, and outside observers.
This post sparked a lot of discussion in the community. To learn more: Q4 2025 Retroactive Grant Disbursement and Governance Integrity
What did you think about it? 👀
Inevitable. ZODL Update.
This week’s update from Josh focuses on one core idea: as AI becomes a bigger part of the digital economy, privacy will no longer be optional, it will be essential. In a future shaped by autonomous agents, digital payments, and large-scale data analysis, zero-knowledge systems like Zcash will become increasingly important. Read more.
Zodl (Formerly Zashi)
Zashi facilitated $460k in swaps in February, up from $394k in January.
Product: The scope for Zodl 3.2.0 was finalized, with a focus on fixes and cross-platform UI/UX improvements.
Reporting: The team identified and prepared a fix for a Swap/Pay reporting issue.
Team: Zodl continued growing, with a new iOS developer candidate in progress.
Metrics
🍎 | iOS: 39.2k unique installs (+1.4k), 46.2k downloads (+1.8k), 4.9★ rating
🤖 | Android: 15.6k install base (+2.1k), 46.6k (+1.7k), 4.28 (+0.06), slightly surpassing iOS total downloads
Zcash Core
Finalized the iOS SDK/FFI reunification.
Prepared a Rewind-to-chain-state API for Android and iOS SDKs.
Added support work for P2SH redeem scripts.
Proposed updates to ZIP 316 and ZIP 48.
Advanced the scope for Zallet alpha.4.
Other
Created an initial 2026 ZODL roadmap, expected before the end of the quarter.
Continued discussions with potential investors following the recent raise announcement.
Advanced policy and regulatory strategy, with plans to attend the MiCA Roundtable in Cannes on March 30.
Attended EthDC to connect with DC stakeholders.
Released a Luma + CipherPay integration to enable Zcash payments for Luma events.
Zcash hashrate reached a new all-time high of 16.54 GS/s, while Foundry announced a Zcash mining pool launching in April 2026.
Always a vibe 🛡️🛡️🛡️🔰🔰🔰