Zcash Shielded News | Vol.16
Overexposed | ECC Update, ChainSafe Adds PCZTs to WebzJS, Mark Henderson joins Shielded Labs & ZecHub launches Shielded Memo Newsletter
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
The ECC Update from last week started with Josh highlighting the kidnapping of Ledger’s Co-Founder, David Balland which recently happened in Mereau, Central France.
According to the news, the kidnappers weren’t targeting David`s crypto itself but Ledger’s crypto, the company he co-created. On Twitter, Jameson Loop posted a thread about the 7 wrench attacks in the first 3 weeks of 2025 giving advices on how to protect yourself from this. (Highly Recommended)
Following these cases, Josh shared his thoughts about users being exposed and how vulnerable they are not protecting their money and thinkin that Bitcoin and transparent blockchains will save them from these situations listed above and that’s the crucial point that makes Zcash and Privacy so important; Shield your Assets! 🛡️
The security and freedom that crypto promises are only truly available to those who keep their payments and holdings private. To establish Zcash as ‘‘Unstoppable Private Money,’’ the key priorities include Scalability, Strong Price Action, Broad Distribution, Deep Liquidity, Secure Funding for Innovation, Interoperability, Censorship-Resistant Infrastructure and a Committed Community.
Based on that, Josh mentioned that Scaling Zcash is a urgent case. Shawn Bowe and the ECC team is hardly working and focusing in methods related to scalability through initiatives like zcashd deprecation, storage through initiatives like Zashi, hardware storage with Keystone and Security enhancements via Zashi Vault.
ECC Progress Last Week
ECC’s Q1 2025 Roadmap was published and will soon be on the ECC website.
The Zashi team is addressing technical debt and refining the interface for better usability, with new features planned for the Zashi 2.0 release in March. User research has resumed, with ECC ZAC members providing feedback on Zashi Vault.
Meanwhile, the Zcash core engineering team is focused on NU7-related work, including developing Zallet (a replacement for the current zcashd CLI wallet), implementing memo bundles, and collaborating across the ecosystem.
Zashi
Zashi Design 📱
Adjustments and revisions to Transaction History screens (Sent & Received)
Continuing design efforts for Balances, Shield ZEC, and Swap
Adhoc edits and adjustments for engineering
ECC 2025 Roadmap graphic
Adjustments and improvements to Restore Wallet flow
Q&A and Dev Support 👨🏻💻
Populated Zashi info on Web3Privacy explorer
Added Zashi-Coinbase Integration info to ZecHub
User Support: Discord, X, & Email
Testing Zashi Android & iOS internal builds
Transaction History Redesign: Linear & GitHub Issues
Working on the 1st draft of a QA checklist
Zashi iOS 🍎
Analytics Update:
Unique Installs: 6.21k
Total Downloads: 7.37k
AppStore Rating: 4.9*
Transaction History Redesign
Implemented Filters business logic and UI
Implemented Search business logic and UI
Tweaked transaction details for all possible states (transparent vs. shielded addresses, sent/received/shielded, etc.)
Added shimmer loading animations
Implemented UI and logic for Add a Note feature
SDK: query for search in memos
SDK: failed transaction timestamps
Fixed broken navigation root cause of never-ending sending animation
Tech Debt:
transactions handling
new solution uses shared state and massively reduces scattered code
PoC: Discover birthday based on a given date so ECC can improve the onboarding experience
Zashi Android 🤖
Analytics Update:
Total Install Base: 3.38k
Total Installs (incl. Open Beta): 13.7k
PlayStore Rating: 4.452*
Transaction History Redesign:
Implemented Brand new Transaction History screen
Implemented Transaction Detail screen
Implemented Transaction Filters (Full-text search is WIP)
Created a transaction metadata object that is stored similarly to the Address book implementation
Added a new private transaction note logic (create/update)
Analyzed what are their possibilities for reproducible builds across stores
Zcash Core 🦓
Zallet has reached functional-alpha status, allowing chain syncing via a lightwalletd server. Initial zcashd wallet RPC interfaces have been implemented, providing templates for further development of the wallet replacement functionality.
The no_std support for zcash_primitives has been merged, enabling the Keystone firmware to use standard transaction signing code instead of custom implementations. This simplifies the NU7 migration, as Keystone will only need to update its zcash_primitives dependency. Additionally, it opens the door for easy implementation of Sapling support in the Keystone firmware if desired.
Greg's initial Rust implementation of the transparent script interpreter has been merged into zcash_script, with more follow-up PRs coming. This lays the foundation for adding transparent multisig support in Zashi, Zallet, and the Keystone wallet.
ECC is finalizing support for transparent address gap limit handling, enabling users to migrate their seed phrase into Zashi or Keystone and access all transparent funds. This also ensures users can recover funds sent back to an interstitial transparent address after a rejected TEX address deposit.
Other 🌐
ECC is actively conducting interviews for a strategic marketing manager. Although the process is slightly behind schedule, progress is being made.
Check out @pacu’s summary of Z|ECC day 2 and his call to action for a ZSA Summit.
ChainSafe has shared the first 2025 update on the Zcash MetaMask Snap and Web Wallet development.
At the end of the year, the team met with Zcash developers to learn about Partially Constructed Zcash Transactions (PCZT), a new approach that distributes transaction construction across multiple roles and steps. This feature has been integrated into the WebZjs Library and is expected to be added to the Web Wallet by next week, improving transaction speed through Web Workers.
While the team previously aimed to implement transaction listing, they determined it is not currently possible due to librustzcash limitations.
With the initial set of user-facing features nearing completion, Quality Assurance has begun developing test scenarios for the web wallet and welcomes feedback from the Zcash community.
Pacu shared updates on various projects, highlighting progress and challenges across different initiatives.
Outreach
The team remains on track, gathering feedback and preparing for Z3 Alpha integration builds, which combine Zebra, Zaino, and Zallet. They updated the public spreadsheet tracking surveyed entities and continue outreach efforts.
Zebra
Integration with Zaino has uncovered features requiring refinements, with the Zebra team addressing these issues. Testing features are lagging behind, primarily due to differences between Regtest mode in Zcashd and Zebra. While Regtest lacks a formal definition, it is essentially a controlled local network for testing. Zebra implements Regtest differently than Zcashd, leading to challenges in porting existing tests. Engineers are now working to bring over Zcashd RPC tests to Zebra, providing a baseline for progress and functionality.
Zaino (ZingoLabs) – Off-Track ⚠
Milestone completion has been delayed, but new developers are joining the effort. Zaino developers are nearing completion of a lightwalletd replacement, pending two key pull requests. The next major task involves integrating ReadStateService from Zebra, which will unblock progress for Zallet.
In-Memory Backend Wrap-Up – Pending Review ⚠
Reviews are still needed for the librustzcash in-memory backend PR, which has faced delays.
Zallet (Formerly Zcash Wallet CLI) – Delayed but Catching Up ⚠
ECC announced a two-month delay in Zallet’s development. However, progress has been made, with the wallet now responding to most RPC methods (albeit with errors). Discussions are ongoing about how to handle key material in the new full-node wallet, and the team is eager to connect Zallet with Zaino once Lightwallet functionality is available.
Wallet Export Format – Ahead of Schedule ✅
The ZeWiF team has completed their first meeting and is finalizing a report on the wallet survey. The team determined that an open issue on Zcashd wallet formats can be closed, marking another step forward in the Zcashd deprecation process.
The team welcomes feedback and suggestions from the Zcash community on improving updates and enhancing engagement.
Two days ago, Jason McGee announced in the forum Mark Henderson as Senior Engineer at Shielded Labs. Previously, Mark worked for Equilibrium Labs, actively contributing to Zcash, and was a ZCG grant recipient from 2021-2022.
He led the early development of the Network Sustainability Mechanism (NSM) and moderated the NU5 and Sandblasting Retrospective.
While at Equilibrium Labs, Mark worked on development initiatives for Protocol Labs, the Algorand Foundation & ZCG. As a ZCG grant recipient, he received a series of grants for Ziggurat, a network-layer testing suite for zcashd and Zebra nodes. Zigurat monitors the network to ensure nodes adhere to the protocol, conducting tests, performing network-wide analysis and providing tools to visualize and improve the network’s performance and security.
We had the chance to meet him in Barcelona at Zcon4! Welcome, Mark!
Last week we oficialy launched our Shielded Newsletter!
Once per week we send newsletter to multiple recipients using the z_sendmany RPC method.
So you can get ecosystem news and network stats directly via the Zcash Network with the ability to unsubscribe at any time.
You just need to paste your Shielded Zcash Address, no e-mail required!
Check it out → zechub.wiki/newsletter