Zcash Shielded News | Vol.23
Shielded Labs Crosslink Milestone 1 Complete, Community Polling on Funding Model ZIPs, ZCG Meeting Minutes, Hardened. Few. ECC Update & 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
Shielded Labs is working hard on the development of Crosslink (Trailing Finality Layer), a hybrid PoW and PoS system for Zcash.
Approximately 19 days ago, Aphelionz published the team's Roadmap on the forum, which you can check out here. The first Milestone started in early March, with the official announcement during the Arborist Call last Thursday (03/20), delivering a week ahead of the estimated date.
In the demonstration below, the finality is defined through an RPC call, with this milestone focusing on explorations with Zebra and its constellation of tools, executing the "Vertical Slice" (mentioned in the roadmap) around this RPC call.
In our demonstration, the finality is simply defined through an RPC call. The intention of this milestone was to get hands-on with Zebra and its constellation of tools and to execute the full "Vertical Slice" described in the roadmap around this RPC call.
Aphelionz also listed each action performed during the demonstration:
0:00 Clockwise from the bottom left is Zcash Devtool, Zaino, and Zebra. Each of them have a bit of Crosslink sprinkled into their functionality.
0:06 Zaino starts.
0:31
zcash_devtool set-finalityis run, which triggers Zaino to forward the parameters to Zebra. Note the log lines in zebra: “final set to… etc” about halfway up the page.0:51 The same command is run again with a different block hash, demonstrating a finality change.
1:01 Idempotency is demonstrated by running the second command two more times. Zebra takes no action because there is no state change.
1:13 Finally, a finality rollback is attempted by sending the first hash again. This is rejected, and Zebra produces an error message.
Other preferred links are listed in his forum post. Some actions include:
The main branch of the ShieldedLabs/zebra-crosslink fork contains the code for this action, available for testing via
cargo run.There is now a placeholder for the ZIP draft. Aphelionz commented that there isn't much yet, but we can expect to see it take shape as the upcoming milestones progress.
Shielded Labs made a Pull Request to the Zebra Upstream project. Although this PR is more related to the NSM work, it was made with the intention of testing the team's progress and starting to build a relationship with the teams.
The Dev Fund ended last year, and the community had to decide whether to decentralize its governance extending it for another year.
The community chose the Hybrid Deferred Lockbox option (ZIP 1015), which removed rewards from funded entities (Electric Coin Company & Zcash Foundation) and allocated 12% to Zcash Community Grants for maintaining community development for another year.
After November this year, funds will no longer be designated to ZCG, posing a risk to the continuity of community work.
Josh (CEO of ECC), Alex (Executive Director of the Zcash Foundation), and Jason McGee (Executive Director of Shielded Labs) have been meeting to explore future solutions. They agreed to consult the community to gather feedback on proposals before the final deadline on March 31. The community will decide whether to extend the Dev Fund and adopt a new funding model, potentially delaying NU7.
Voting will start in the first week of April and will include ZEC Holders, ZCAP (ZF), and ECC’s ZAC. Proposals must be formally specified in a draft ZIP for inclusion in the vote. Josh will present two proposals: ZBloc & Community + Coinholder.
Key Dates:
March 31: Deadline for submitting draft ZIPs
By April 7: Voting begins
April 18: Voting ends
By April 21: Results shared and next steps defined
🔗| Link
Interested in learning about the Zcash Community Grants meetings?
Here's a summary of what was discussed and the participants. Check the Grant Dashboard for more details.
Attendance:
Zcash Arabia ❌
The proposal aimed to expand Zcash adoption in the Middle East and North Africa by providing Arabic-language resources, developer support, and an educational academy. The team requested $11,500 for three months to create educational content, host events, and support developers. However, ZCG members rejected the grant unanimously, suggesting the team first contribute through ZecHub to demonstrate value before requesting funding. None of the ZCG members were familiar with the contributors, and multiple members, including Brian and Artkor, emphasized the need for a proven track record before approving such a grant.
Zcash Governance Model Design ❌
The Zcash Governance Model Design proposal, led by Areta, aimed to create a structured process for selecting Zcash’s next governance model through stakeholder input, community feedback, and workshops. The team requested $190,000 for a 12-month project divided into three phases.
While ZCG members appreciated the independent approach, they rejected the proposal due to concerns about its long timeline, uncertain outcomes, and the need for faster decision-making with the upcoming expiration of ZIP 1015 in November. Some members felt the community could develop a governance model on its own, and funding constraints also played a role in the rejection.
Ultimately, the grant was unanimously rejected, with some members open to reconsidering Areta’s involvement once the ecosystem's financial situation improves.
Zenith Full Node Wallet 2025 ❓
Vergara Technologies, led by Pitmutt, proposed a $91,700 grant to enhance the Zenith Full Node Wallet by adding FROST multi-signature support and integrating the Keystone hardware wallet. The grant would fund development, hardware purchases, and a donation to the Open Privacy Research Society.
While ZCG members acknowledged the importance of these features for technical users, concerns were raised about limited funding and the wallet’s user base. Before voting, members, including Jason and Brian, wanted to gather data on Zenith’s adoption and community interest.
The vote was postponed until the next meeting, with further feedback to be collected during the Arborist Call.
Eliza OS Zcash Plugin ❓
ElizaOS is an open-source operating system for AI agents, and the proposal seeks $20,000 to develop a Zcash integration plugin for wallet management, transactions, and real-time blockchain data. The plugin would follow ElizaOS’s modular architecture and be fully open-source.
ZCG members felt it was too early to vote, with Jason suggesting waiting until AI agent technology matures to assess demand. ZeroDartz wanted to see outcomes from the NEAR hackathon before deciding. Artkor expressed interest, highlighting ElizaOS’s tech-savvy audience.
The proposal remains under discussion, with no vote taken yet.
Brainstorm Session Follow-Ups
Maya Protocol
ZCG recognizes the urgency of this project and aims to expedite its completion. The committee will soon meet with Maya Protocol and Hanh to discuss the next steps. A community update will follow shortly.
Tor
ZCG had a productive call with TOR to explore ways to collaborate on driving Zcash adoption. They discussed sharing relevant stories between the two communities and the possibility of TOR implementing a shielded ZEC donation solution. The conversation also touched on BTCPayServer, leading to further updates.
BTCPayServer update: Brian to reach out to 1337bytes to follow-up on their potential interest in adding the required functionality.
Community Notetaker
The submission deadline has passed with four proposals received. ZCG will make a decision by March 31.
🔗| Link
In this week’s update, Josh reflects on the diverse nature of the Zcash community, recognizing that while many come and go, some are motivated by personal gain, and others are deeply committed to the mission.
The true heart of the community lies with the "champions," individuals who are dedicated to the mission of decentralized private money, regardless of the challenges or pressures they face.
These champions are resilient, skilled, and unwavering in their commitment. The author draws inspiration from the quote by Howard Roark in The Fountainhead, emphasizing the importance of building for the mission, not for external rewards.
The community's vision is focused on a better world, and it remains steadfast in the face of external pressures from centralized powers. The champions are urged to hold the line, collaborate with fellow believers, act with purpose, embrace volatility, choose strategic engagements, and recruit others to grow their ranks.
Despite being a small group against powerful opposition, Josh believes in the champions’ strength and the truth of their cause, confident that they will ultimately succeed.
Zashi Design
Progressed on the App Redesign, focusing on Wallet Status Widget designs, Syncing & Restoring UI, and Balances UI.
Continued work on Available Balance designs.
Started exploring design options for Crosschain Payments (Maya/Near).
Made several ad hoc edits based on product and engineering requests.
Q&A and Dev Support
Tested Android dev build with App Redesign
Taking care of user support issues and Discord
Supporting the Zashi team with ad hoc requests
Finalizing and implementing a QA Release Checklist
Next: Zashi 1.5 Release Testing
Zcash iOS
iOS 16+ navigation: TCA failed us hard with stack overflow issue (discussions with TCA devs helped to clarify the issues)
Fully reimplemented flows: Settings, Get some ZEC from Home Screen, Receive screen with Request ZEC flows, Send flows with scan ZIP321 flows, Scan flows from Home Screen (new button), Add Keystone Wallet from More… & Account sheet
Around 75% of overall work done
Created a prototype for the new Wallet Status Widget on the Home Screen
Zashi Android
SDK Updates:
Adopted changes for resolving the note commitment tree bug
Added the ability to persist a state permanently to SDK using SharedPreferences
BIP39 library:
All dependencies updated
Released new version 1.0.9
Zashi Updates:
Seed suggestions refactored
Restore Seed & Wallet Birthday Height logic fully refactored
Implemented Wallet Status Widget
Onboarding tech debt
Home Screen tech debt
Other
A couple core team members will be out in Sofia with others in the Zcash community this week for HACS, Real World Crypto, and ZkProof.
Began Q2 pre-planning for Zashi.
2.5M+ in the shielded pool.
🔗|Link
More
Zcash x NEAR Intents Hackathon; $70,000 Prize Pools
There are two days left until the Hackathon ends, with $70,000 in prizes at stake.
Check out this link for more information:
x.com/Local_Zcash/status/1901645648253890878ZecHub Podcast: Privacy 2.0 & Arcium with Milian
This week, we released our first episode of the ZecHub Podcast with Millian from Arcium.
If you're not familiar with the topic, Arcium is a decentralized confidential computing network designed to enable secure and efficient processing of encrypted data across various industries, including blockchain, finance, healthcare, defense, and AI.
Learn more here:
ZecHub Sync Meet 18-03-2025
We have published our updates from the past few weeks, along with an overview of the ZecHub DAO treasury.
Any feedback is welcome.