Zcash Shielded News | Vol.50 🛡️
ECC Retroactive Grant Application, Relentless Innovation – Josh Swihart Update, Follow Zcash Global Communities, Zcash Z3 Updates (formerly Zcashd Deprecation) & Relentless Innovation - ECC
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: Diversified Shielded Addresses 💡
In recent versions of the Zashi wallet, whenever you open the “Receive” screen, it generates a new shielded address (from the unified address pool), this helps improve privacy by avoiding address reuse.
📩 IN TODAY’S EDITION
🏛️ Bootstrap Org / Electric Coin Company Retroactive Grant Application
• ECC has submitted a retroactive grant request, highlighting their work on Zashi, protocol engineering, and community engagement.
🚀 Relentless Innovation – Zcash Update by Josh Swihart
• Josh shares the latest on ECC’s progress and vision for the future of Zcash.
🌍 Give These Zcash Global Communities a Follow
• A shoutout to the amazing work happening in Zcash Global Communities — don’t miss their activities! Follow @Zcash for updates.
🔧 Zcash Z3 Updates (formerly Zcashd Deprecation)
• Important development updates as the ecosystem transitions from zcashd to Z3.
🎙️ Digital Gold Talk Podcast – Why We Love Zcash
• A fresh podcast episode diving into Zcash’s unique strengths and why it matters for financial privacy..
Recently, the ECC submitted a retroactive grant request totaling approximately $2.67M USD for work completed between December 2024 and June 2025.
Key achievements during this period include the release of Zashi 2.0, integration with Flexa, support for Ledger and Keystone hardware wallets, and the publication of Zashi on GitHub and F-Droid. On the protocol side, ECC delivered zcashd v6.2.0, completed the ZeWIF libraries, and integrated shielded ZEC into the Brave Wallet.
In terms of community and ecosystem engagement, ECC organized Z|ECC Summit 3, participated in ZconVI and other major industry conferences, and maintained consistent communication through regular updates.
The impact of this work is clear: the shielded pool nearly doubled, growing from 1.76M ZEC in November 2024 to 3.15M ZEC by June 2025, while both Zcash and Zashi demonstrated significant growth across user sentiment, social media engagement, and engineering activity.
In a nutshell, ECC’s grant request highlights substantial progress in product development, protocol engineering, and community engagement, underscoring the organization’s continued role as a leading contributor to the Zcash ecosystem.
On the forum thread, there’s already a long discussion about this proposal. Some people support it, while others have questions.
What do you think? Leave your comment below or in the thread -> Link
On Saturday, Josh shared an update on behalf of ECC, emphasizing that human agency relies on private financial transaction free from surveillance. He explained that abundance requires deliberate action, which drives ECC’s innovation with Zcash & Zashi to delieve usable financial privacy and unstoppable private money
🔎 Diving into ECC updates
Zashi
$2M+ in ZEC already swapped or paid via Zashi since launch.
Daily activity: 1,180 ZEC swaps + 173 transactions through CrossPay.
New Futures & Improvements:
Swap-to-ZEC nearly ready for production.
UX boost with mempool detection and confirmation configurability.
Fresh product design process to speed up feature rollout.
Coming Soon:
Transparent address rotation,
Ledger support, duress/decoy wallets, multi-account support & UI personalization.
Zashi | Adoption Numbers
IOS
Unique Installs: 10,7k (prev. 10.4k)
Total Downloads: 12,7k (prev. 12.4k)
AppStore Rating: 4.9*
🤖 Android
Total Install Base: 4,18k (prev. 4.19k)
Total Installs (incl. Open Beta): 23,3k (prev.23k)
Playstore Rating: 4.34*
Zcash Core 🦓
Big progress on zcash_script refactoring (almost complete).
fixed key bug in librustzcash.
Added P2SH multisig support to dev tools.
Coming soon:
Release Zcashd with NU6.1 on mainnet.
Prepare NU7 upgrades (Quantum resilience, key rotation, ongoing lockbox disbursement).
Transparent key rotation support for swaps + Coinbase.
Other 🌐
Represent Zcash at Coin Center Dinner (with ZEC payments via Payy!).
Planning participation in Dark Prague + DC Privacy Summit,
In the Zcash community, several local groups are supported by ZCG or ZecHub to work on expanding the project in their regions and countries.
Today, we’ll give a brief highlight of these communities, and if you’re new or simply didn’t know these projects existed, feel free to join their groups and follow Zcash updates in your native language.
Zcash Brazil
Since 2022, the Zcash Brazil team has established itself as an active voice in the national privacy ecosystem, promoting Zcash in the country through Discord, social media, and events.
They founded the official server (initially as Zcash LatAm, later renamed Zcash Global), and focus on education, content translation, and visual infrastructure (design).
They also organized the first Zcash event in Latin America, Zcon Voices 2023, in partnership with the Zcash Foundation. Their social media is regularly updated with well-crafted educational posts.
Zcash Spanish
Zcash en Español has become the main hub for the Spanish-speaking Zcash community. Since launching the official website in 2022, they’ve delivered articles, guides, metrics, news, a glossary, and a directory of Zcash clubs.
They also run a YouTube channel, publish a newsletter, and stay active on the forum. With initiatives like “Zcash Global en Español”, they expand digital presence, host events in Latin America and Spain, and support local clubs like Barcelona, strengthening Zcash’s reach and promoting financial privacy education.▶️ | Youtube
🐦 | X / Twitter
📸 | Instagram
📲 | Telegram
📝 | Proposal
Zcash Korea
In March 2025, Aiden Jeon became ambassador for Zcash Korea through a ZecHub DAO proposal, aiming to boost Korean-language communication, translate ecosystem updates, and engage users on KakaoTalk, Telegram, Twitter/X, and Naver Café.
The community has 300+ members on KakaoTalk and shares technical resources, encouraging users to run nodes and explore Zcash infrastructure. Despite South Korea’s strict regulations on privacy coins dating back to a 2020 ban proposal and earlier delisting pressures from exchanges like OKEx Korea the group remains active, building awareness and supporting local Zcash adoption.🐦 | X / Twitter
📝 | Proposal
Zcash Nigeria
Zcash Nigeria launched under the Global Ambassador Program, led by Chidi (“lisa001”), to expand Zcash adoption across Africa. Since its creation, the team has organized meetups and workshops in Nigeria, Ghana, and Uganda, introduced Zcash in universities, and even sponsored a football tournament to spread the “privacy is normal” message.
They’ve also focused on merchant onboarding, social media education, and localized content. Recently, Zcash Nigeria requested $9,600 from ZCG to scale events, content creation, and community growth, strengthening Zcash’s presence in the region.
Zcash Ghana
Zcash Ghana promotes education and adoption of Zcash in the country through events, meetups, and local initiatives. In July 2025, they organized the X-Space “Financial Privacy & the Power of Zcash” and hosted the first in-person meetup in Accra, strengthening community engagement.
They also maintain an active presence on Twitter/X through @ZcashGH, educating developers, enthusiasts, and businesses about financial privacy. To fund their activities, the team relies on ZEC donations via Free2Z, which support meetups and educational initiatives.
Zcash Turkey
Zcash Turkey is a community project focused on raising awareness of Zcash and financial privacy in Turkey. Led by Batuhan, the team creates Turkish-language content, runs social channels, and organizes local events.
In 2025, they requested $10,400 to expand education, content creation, and community growth. Active since 2024, Zcash Turkey continues building resources and engagement for the local community.
Zcash Ukraine
Zcash Ukraine launched in June 2025 under the coordination of Beyond. In its first month, the team built a local presence by creating five Zcash UA social channels, producing localized content, and improving search visibility (now appearing on Google’s first page).
Since then, they’ve been active with community events, giveaways, and promotional activities, sometimes covering extra costs themselves to maintain quality. Recently, they’ve shifted toward smaller, more educational events and are experimenting with gamified learning methods to keep engagement high.
The Z3 team shared another weekly development update, highlighting both progress and challenges across projects.
Outreach efforts have resumed, with surveys still collecting responses and initial Zallet alpha testing outreach underway to trusted teams who can provide feedback during this early phase.
The Zebra team announced changes to Zcashd RPC error codes, advising users to open GitHub issues for specific requirements, while continuing to improve CI, tooling, APIs, and reviewing contributions from ECC, Zingo, and community members.
Work on Zaino is ongoing, with collaboration between Zingo and ZecHub developers helping resolve setup issues, which will later be turned into improved documentation.
The Zallet full node wallet has reached its alpha release, with ECC focused on NU 6.1 code and outreach beginning to ecosystem teams to encourage testing. Finally, block explorer support is in testing, with passthrough RPCs implemented in collaboration with Zingo developers.
This week’s podcast provided a comprehensive overview of Zcash, focusing on its technological advancements, community growth, and future direction.
Key topics discussed included:
Advancements in Privacy: The panel highlighted Zcash’s leadership in privacy technology, noting the significant increase in shielded transactions and the importance of privacy for the broader cryptocurrency ecosystem.
Improved Usability and Adoption: Recent updates, such as the Zashi wallet and cross-chain payment features, were recognized as major steps forward in making Zcash more accessible and practical for everyday use.
Community Engagement: The discussion emphasized the strength and dedication of the Zcash community, from educational initiatives to efforts supporting merchant adoption and user onboarding.
Future Outlook: The podcast also addressed upcoming upgrades, including a hybrid proof-of-work/proof-of-stake model and new mechanisms to ensure long-term network sustainability.
Overall, the episode underscored Zcash’s ongoing commitment to privacy, innovation, and user experience, positioning it as a leading project in the digital currency space.
For those interested in the future of private and secure digital transactions, Zcash remains a project to follow closely.
Link → x.com/i/broadcasts/1OdKrOMwlvXGX