Zcash Shielded News | Vol.30 ⓩ
Zcash Foundation’s Q1 2025 Report, Zebra 2.3.0 Release, Zcash Browser Wallet Library Update, Zcash Z3 Updates (Formerly Zcashd Deprecation) May 9th, Choose Your Own Adventure. An Update on Zcash.
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
Hello, Zeeps! 👋
We’re starting the week off right by reading the Zcash Foundation’s Q1 Report.
If you don’t know, the Zcash Foundation Transparency Reports are quarterly documents that detail the foundation’s activities, finances, and strategic decisions, with the goal of keeping the Zcash community informed and engaged.
These reports include Technical Updates, Financial Summary, Governance/Community & Institutional Transparency.
In the “Executive Director” note, Alex Bornstein outlined the significant changes, progress, and milestones that took place this quarter.
Leadership Change: Farewell to Jack Gavigan after four years as Executive Director.
Community Grants: New energy from the ZCG election, advancing participatory grantmaking.
Technical Milestones: Releases of FROST 2.1.0 and Zebra 2.2.0 strengthened security and usability.
Trademark Policy: A new policy to protect Zcash’s identity while supporting adoption.
Ecosystem Events:
ZconVI showcased decentralization and collaboration.
The first Zcash Dev Summit was held in Sofia, Bulgaria.
Governance: Welcomed Taylor Hornby and Ted Hoffmann to the Board.
Zcash Foundation - Engineering Highlights (Sprint 01-06)
In Q1, the Engineering team made significant progress across key projects:
Zebra Development: Continued efforts toward zcashd deprecation by fixing bugs, enhancing RPC methods for compatibility, and addressing feedback from ecosystem partners.
FROST Protocol:
Released FROST v2.1.0.
Improved the FROST server (frostd) and reference libraries.
Addressed audit findings and prepared for upcoming community calls and demos.
DevOps:
Focused on documenting and simplifying CI infrastructure to support community replication.
Held a community call to walk through the CI setup.
Worked on improving Dockerfiles and Docker images for easier Zebra deployment in production.
Collaboration & Outreach:
Participated in ZconVI (virtually).
Attended Dev Summit and RWC in Sofia, Bulgaria, engaging with ecosystem partners for knowledge sharing.
ZF Use of Funds
During Q1 2025, ZF's monthly operating expenses averaged approximately $308,975 USD. The breakdown of resource allocation is as follows:
Community Calls, Event Sponsorship, Forum & Comms: $11,265
Conference & Professional Development: 14,356
Dev Summit: 10,795
General Overhead: $78,916
Program Expenses: $107,009
Retreat: 7,819
Team Compensation: $660,409
ZCG Support: $2,809
Zcon: $13,547
ZF Grants: $20,0000
Total: 926,926
To get the full details on the transparency report, visit this link.
Still on the topic of the Zcash Foundation, we received another release with updates for the Zebra node
Breaking Changes:
Regtest Mod
Added methods to reconsider and invalidate blocks.
Fixided a bug that was preventing some transparent transactions from being served by Zebra in regtest mode.
This release restors Zebra’s ability to mine blocks on testnet and regtest.
The RPC endpoint is no longer enabled by default in Docker.
ZF is no longer publishing Docker images with tags that use the sha
-orvprefixes.The getblocktemplate-rpcs Cargo feature has been removed, and the funcionality behind that flag is now available by default.
The Zcash Browser Wallet Library, also known as WebZjs, is a JavaScript/TypeScript library developed by ChainSafe.
The main goal is to enable secure interaction with the Zcash blockchain directly from web browsers. This library is designed to support the development of web-based wallets and browser extension, facilitating the creation of user-friendly Zcash applications.
Some of the key futures include:
WebAssembly Integration: Uses Wasm modules for efficient in-browser cryptographic operations.
WebWallet Class: Manages wallet features like accounts and transactions.
Lightwalletd Compatibility: Syncs with the Zcash network via gRPC-web and lightwalletd servers.
MetaMask Snap Support: Lets users manage Zcash accounts in MetaMask through a Snap plugin.
Open Source: Licensed under Apache 2.0 and MIT
The good thing is… The ZBWL & MetaMask sap integration have officially reached completion. This means the core development work is done, and the tools are now in the audit phase.
Once the audit is successfully completed, the Snap will be made available for users, allowing seamless Zcash support directly within MetaMask.
Weekly, Pacu publishes updates on the Zcashd Deprecation process.
Pacu mentioned in Outreach that they will begin asking the ecosystem specific questions about their expectations, requirements, and suggestions for the migration process from Zcashd to Zebrad.
In Zebra, with the release of Zebra 2.3.0 (👆), the Zebra team is now focusing on key developments for Zcash Z3. Which includes:
Support shielded coinbase in getblocktemplate for Orchard Unified addresses
Add a mempool_transactions() RPC method for listening to changes in the mempool
The Status of Zaino (ZingoLabs) is on track. Regarding the In-Memory Backend wrap-up, Pacu mentioned that this task has been falling through the cracks somewhat — the team still needs to provide reviews for this PR on the librustzcash repository.
Zallet is delayed. ECC has notified a deviation of 2 months from the original schedule.
You can track the work done in this repository. Yasser is starting to work on Docker tooling on Zallet & Str4d is working on tools to help Zcashd operators migrate to Zebra and is seeking feedback.
ZeWIF integration into Zallet is progressing with strong collaboration between Blockchain Commons, Zaino, and ECC.
Wallet Export format + ZexCavator Status is On-track. ChristopherA confirmed that the ZeWIF component is complete — a key step in migrating Zcashd wallets to the new infrastructure. ZCG has acknowledged this as the fulfillment of Milestone 5.
The Block Explorer already started.,As Zaino’s JSON RPC endpoint matures, integration with the Zcash Block Explorer has begun. ZingoLabs will also start their next grant, which includes Block Explorer support, in parallel.
ZingoLabs, Pacu and others started to fork the zcash-explorer repo to contribute to it. 😊
In this week`s update, Josh compares traditional financial systems to old, restrictive video games—offering only the illusion of choice.
Drawing on Self-Determination Theory, he argues that real human flourishing requires autonomy, competence, and connection. Zcash is like an open-world game for money: privacy-preserving, self-custodied, and user-driven—built to give people true agency, not just pre-approved options.
It's a great text, and you can read it in full here.
That said, let's move on to the ECC updates from the past week.
Zashi
📱| Zashi Design
Tweaked Send/Receive icons in Zashi Blueprint
Updated marketing graphics for App Store & Play Store
Continued Cross-chain Payments design work (SwapKit & Near research)
Started exploring Zashi landing page designs
Learning from new products/features at Config 2025
🍎| Zashi iOS
📈Unique Installs: 7.71k
⬇️Total Downloads: 9.28k
⭐AppStore Rating: 4.9*
Zashi 2.0:
Focused on Zashi 2.0.2 with major fixes and updates
Released Zashi 2.0.2 🚀
Updated Tor SDK; reviewing new feedback (iteration in progress)
Research spike on Near 1-Click API, SwapKit, Maya, and WalletConnect
🤖| Zashi Android
📈Total Install Base: 3.77k
⬇️Total Installs (incl. Open Beta): 18.3k
⭐PlayStore Rating: 4.509*
Investigating user-reported issues
UI tweaks and improvements for Zashi 2.0.2 underway
Working on Tor transaction submission and related fixes
Began reviewing Near 1-Click API documentation
🦓| Zcash Core
librustzcash/SDKs: Improved Tor reliability, backported crate stack for zcashd
Zallet: Added OpenRPC, fixed seed hex order, working on
z_sendmanyZeWIF: Continued code rework
Research/Auditing: Explored Lean for circuit security, reviewed Namada airdrop protocol
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