Zcash Shielded News | Vol.17
Unstoppable Private Money + Unstoppable Cross-Chain Liquidit, Scaling Up - ECC Update, ZCG | Meeting Minutes 2/3/25, Register for ZcashVI & Zebra 2.2.0 Release
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
This week Zcash has been fully integrated into NearProtocol Stack, introducing a new type of transaction that enables cross-chain decentralized token trading, multichain abstraction, and novel AI-powered payment rails for ZEC. Based on this, users can seamlessly trade ZEC with BTC, XRP, ETH, NEAR, SOL and more, all currently with zero fees.
Near Intents is a decentralized, KYC-Free alternative to centralized exchanges. It offers a similar user experience while enabling individuals (and AI agents) to swap native assets almost instantly.
Once Zcash is looking to improve Interoperability, NEAR has designed for this, also reducing bridge risks and supporting agent-driven payment systems. Integrating Zcash with NEAR’s Intents infrastructure and Chain Signatures technology expands ZEC’s utility, enables new possibilities for proxy smart contract development and could pave the way for shielded Orchard swaps with ZSAs.
New Opportunities For ZEC Holders
NEAR Intents enable private and seamless cross-chain swaps for Zcash users. This integration allows shielded ZEC from the Orchard pool to be transferred to a T-address managed by NEAR smart contracts, preserving privacy while facilitating efficient asset exchanges. ZEC holders can now swap for cryptocurrencies like BTC, ETH, SOL, and NEAR while maintaining financial confidentiality through Zcash’s Zero-Knowledge Proofs.
How NEAR Users Benefit
The integration of Zcash into NEAR Intents offers users a simple and permissionless way to obtain ZEC and engage with the Zcash ecosystem. Once swapped, users can shield their ZEC with a Zcash wallet, such as YWallet, Zashi, and Zingo!, and quickly experience the power of self-custodying unstoppable private money. Optimal privacy is maintained when funds remain at rest, as they become part of a larger anonymity set over time.
Zcash functions like digital cash, enabling fast and low-cost private peer-to-peer payments. It’s also integrated with payment networks like Flexa, which allows users to spend from their shielded balance at various retailers without exposing their transaction history or prior economic activity.
Holding ZEC aligns with Zcash’s broader value proposition, driven by its scarcity—limited to a 21 million supply cap—and its unique role in enhancing financial privacy. By holding shielded ZEC, users not only protect their assets, but also help support the Zcash ecosystem and its mission to safeguard human freedom and data sovereignty.
NEAR Intents App: https://app.near-intents.org/
Read more about NEAR Intents: https://near.org/intents
In this week's ECC Update, Josh shared his experience at the Satoshi Roundtable in Dubai, an invite-only unconference where attendees chose discussion topics, including a dedicated privacy track. He reflected on Dubai’s transformation since his last visit 24 years ago and how his past experiences there shaped his views on surveillance and privacy.
Josh highlighted the importance of NEAR’s new permissionless ZEC swaps, calling it a crucial step toward financial freedom, recounting conversations with various Zcash community members, including a miner working to address centralization, a marketer strategizing outreach, a behind-the-scenes contributor supporting growth & Zcash founding scientist Eli-Ben-Sasson discussion STARTKs and Scalability.
Josh’s message concludes with a call to scale in multiple areas: protocol improvements, performance, user adoption, interoperability, team expansion, and community engagement. framing this as a mission against surveillance, tyranny, and crypto’s declining ethos, emphasizing that scaling is necessary to win. Build it. Scale it. Shield it.
Zashi (from @Andrea)
Zashi Design
Onboarding Redesign: Create & Restore Wallet flow
Adjustments and revisions to Seed Phrase and Wallet Birthday Height designs
Thinking through Secret Recovery Phrase designs (researching inspo and designing new concepts)
Adjustments and iterations for App Home Screen (Empty State and Seed Phrase backup banner)
Adhoc engineering edits and improvements (Keystone)
👨🏻💻| Q&A and Dev Support
User Support: Discord, X, & Email
Testing Zashi Android & iOS internal builds with Transaction History Redesign
Zashi - testing Keystone fixes and improvements
Brainstorming about the Zashi Website
QA Checklist draft review
ECC/Zashi Roadmap - Blog + Socials
Review and share Z|ECC summit session notes
Start testing & documenting of Zashi Send & Receive user flows w/ Exchanges
🍎| Zashi iOS
Keystone flows and QR fixes
Implemented Tap to enlarge QR code
Implemented Automatic full brightness
Updated Keystone SDK
Keystone added to Integrations screen
Implemented optimizations and Improvements for older and slower devices
Reset Zashi logic enhanced to cover more edge cases and error reports
Resolved issue around corrupted keychain data and inability to get out of this state for a user
Many smaller fixes and improvements
📱| Zashi Android
SDK:
Improved transaction handling APIs with TransactionId object
Added the new get-transaction-by-memo-substring API
Added a timestamp for failed transactions
Zashi App:
Bumped Flexa libraries to the latest version 1.0.11, which removed unnecessary unused READ_PHONE_STATE permissions
Keystone integration added to the Integrations screen
The Zashi QR now provides tap-to-enlarge functionality with automatic full-brightness
Refactored the internal transaction handling business logic
Did a few minor bug fixes and performance updates
Alternative Zashi deployment:
Started to work on our two new deployment targets: GitHub Releases and F-Droid
Enforcing FOSS (Free and open source software) principles - WIP
Created a new Zashi Foss build type.
Started to work on the CI part with the help of Yasser, too.
🦓| Zcash Core (from @nuttycom)
This week, the ECC core team spent a lot of time on specification work. ECC reviewed & merged most of the ZSA Protocol: Transfer, Issuance and Burn: ZIPs 226, 227, and 230 ZIP, and followed it up with additional recommendations and changes in ZIP 227: Replace `asset_desc` with its hash in `AssetId` by str4d · Pull Request #975 · zcash/zips · GitHub.
ECC worked on specifying how to approach associated metadata encryption for mobile wallets and also worked on updates for ZIP 315, describing considerations around transparent address linkability for mobile wallets.
ECC added wallet initialization to Zallet and set up a comprehensive CI infrastructure for the project.
@str4d analyzed the Keystone firmware to determine which components are most responsible for the binary’s growth. The team want to ensure that the Keystone folks are well-informed when deciding whether to split privacy coins into a separate firmware build (and hopefully make that unnecessary).
ECC have successfully demonstrated the recovery of locked funds from a bricked Ledger device via our Keystone integration using zcash-devtool. The necessary functionality will be integrated into Zashi, coming soon.
🌐| Other
Josh met with Sean to get an update on his scaling research and discuss STARKs and lattices as alternatives to SNARKs.
Josh had a call with Jonathan at Qedit to discuss what was needed to support a zBTC ZSA. @aquietinvestor and Josh then discussed the concern about not having something in place soon after NU7 activation and @pacu’s idea of better ZSA coordination. ECC’s working on the next steps
Josh met with one of the Tari cofounders in Dubai. He gave Josh a demo of the product they are launching soon. The user experience is unlike anything the Josh seen in crypto. It’s something to watch.
@peacemonger released a survey about security and the needs of zodlers to ZAC members and other users. The data is insightful. She is now conducting user interviews and has plans for a follow-up survey.
Attendance:👥
Artkor
Brian
GGuy
Jason
Zerodartz
Alex (FPF resource, notetaker)
📍| Zcash Nigeria 2025
The Zcash Community Grants (ZCG) committee unanimously approved a $9,600 grant for Zcash Nigeria 2025, a three-month project led by Chidi, a former ambassador, and his team of four active Zechub contributors. The initiative aims to expand Zcash’s presence in Nigeria by raising awareness, building a local community, and promoting adoption through educational content, meetups, and business engagement. While all members supported the grant, some noted concerns about ZEC’s price and indicated that stricter funding standards might be applied in the future if market conditions remain unfavorable.
📍| Fix BTCPay Zcash Plugin
The ZCG committee is reviewing a $150,000 grant request from Birdcalls to improve the Zcash module for BTCPay Server, making it more user-friendly and integrating it with the BTCPay Docker setup. While ZCG generally supports funding payment infrastructure, concerns were raised about the market demand, timing, high cost, and lack of ongoing maintenance in the proposal. There was also discussion about a separate idea for a commission-based salesperson role proposed by Hanh. Given these considerations, ZCG will continue monitoring the forum discussion and revisit the proposal in the next meeting before voting.
💡| Brainstorm Session Follow-Ups
ZCG approved this request async last week. The $4,000 has been paid.
GGuy stated, ‘‘I think we need to be agile and flexible with grantees so that they are agile and flexible with us.’’
Least Authority
The Ecosystem Security Lead Agreement has been extended twelve months at the same rate as the previous agreement.
Both the pending invoice and the pending project plan have both been approved.
ZCG members agreed that Least Authority has done a very good job so far.
Community Grants
ZCG’s plan is to review the first month reports from the recent Community Grants cohort and then determine how to best encourage collaboration between the grantees. Next steps in this process will be discussed at future brainstorm meetings.
The registration for ZconVI is already open!
Zcon is an annual conference the Zcash Foundation (ZF) organizes, with a focus on Zcash and privacy-preserving technologies.
ZconVI will be a virtual gathering Tuesday, March 4 - Friday, March 7, 2025 (exact times TBA).
Registration for ZconVI(rtual) is free and required for participation in discussions and Q&A sessions. To register, attendees need to provide a name or pseudonym, an email address, and agree to the code of conduct.
All sessions will also be available on the Zcash Foundation YouTube channel for on-demand viewing. Virtual registration will remain open until the event concludes.
The event will focus on the theme of Synergy Through Decentralization, highlighting the collaborative efforts of multiple organizations in planning and executing the event content. However, it is important to note that the sessions themselves are not restricted by any specific theme, providing a broad canvas for diverse topics and discussions.
The conference structure is designed to foster collaboration among key organizations within the Zcash ecosystem:
Day 1 (Tuesday, March 4): Zcash Foundation (ZF) will curate the content, setting the tone for the conference with insightful sessions and discussions.
Day 2 (Wednesday, March 5): Electric Coin Company (ECC) will take charge of planning, bringing their expertise and vision to the forefront.
Day 3 (Thursday, March 6): Zcash Community Grants (ZCG) will organize the day's content. Notably, they are encouraged to explore topics beyond their direct funding activities.
Day 4 (Friday, March 7): ZecHub will conclude the event with a day filled with innovative ideas and community-driven discussions.
Each day will feature a co-curated panel session. These panels are a collaborative effort among all partner organizations and will be livestreamed to ensure maximum reach and engagement.
ZF will handle all logistical aspects of ZconVI. This includes managing audiovisual needs, registration processes, attendee communication, graphic design for event materials, and more. ZF will again utilize the well-received Whova platform and update the app to maximize opportunities for community engagement throughout the conference.
Each participating organization will have a liaison working closely with ZF to ensure that all necessary information for their planned sessions is communicated effectively.
For more infos → https://zfnd.org/zconvi/
For the noders around, last week ZF announced the new release of Zebra 2.2.0 with new features and fixes which introduced an additional consensus check on the branch ID of NU6 transactions, along with important refactors and improvements.
Added
An index to track spending transaction ids by spent outpoints and revealed nullifiers (#8895)
Accessor methods to zebra-rpc request/response types (#9113)
getblock RPC method now can return transaction details with verbosity=2 (#9083)
Serialized NU5 blocks to test vectors (#9098)
Changed
Migrated from deprecated jsonrpc_* crates to jsonrpsee (#9059, #9151)
Optimized checks for coinbase transactions (#9126)
Avoid re-verifying transactions in blocks if those transactions are in the mempool (#8951, #9118)
Allow transactions spending coinbase outputs to have transparent outputs on Regtest (#9085)
Fixed
Respond to getblockchaininfo with genesis block when empty state (#9138)
Verify consensus branch ID in SIGHASH precomputation (#9139)
More closely match zcashd RPC errors and getrawtransaction RPC behaviour (#9049)
Fixes bugs in the lightwalletd integration tests (#9052)
According to the contributors, ZF gave a shout out to: @Fallengirl, @arya2, @conradoplg, @elijahhampton, @futreall, @gustavovalverde, @idky137, @mpguerra, @oxarbitrage, @rex4539, @rootdiae, @sandakersmann and @upbqdn
Go update your zebrad right now! 😉