Edition #2Sunday, March 29, 2026

Zcash Weekly — March 29, 2026

Grayscale publishes dedicated Zcash research report calling privacy 'infrastructure, not a feature.' Zebra 4.3.0 ships critical security patches and ZIP-235. CipherPay launches Machine Payments Protocol for AI agent payments.

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Archive note: this edition uses the current ZecBlock name and links. Reporting and publication dates are unchanged.

Grayscale Publishes "Zcash: Financial Privacy in the Age of AI"

Grayscale Research dropped a dedicated Zcash report on March 27, framing privacy as "infrastructure, not a feature." The report argues that AI-powered surveillance makes financial privacy essential, not optional — and positions ZEC as the leading solution. Key stat: if Zcash captures just 5% of the Currencies Crypto Sector, Grayscale estimates an 18x upside. The report specifically names Tachyon and CrossLink as evidence of Zcash's engineering depth. Zooko, Swihart, Cypherpunk, and ZODL all amplified the announcement.

Grayscale Research

Zebra 4.3.0 Ships Critical Security Patches + ZIP-235

The Zcash Foundation released Zebra 4.3.0 on March 25 with two security fixes — including a V5 transaction proof verification bypass that could have caused a chain split. Also adds ZIP-235 (Network Sustainability Mechanism) support and fixes a Testnet CPU regression. All node operators should upgrade immediately. Full disclosure.

released Zebra 4.3.0

Winklevoss Twins Frame ZEC as "Encrypted Bitcoin"

Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss declared: "The financial crisis of 2008 catalyzed Bitcoin. AI is going to catalyze Zcash and privacy... Think of Zcash as encrypted Bitcoin." Josh Swihart built on this, framing ZEC as an "encrypted hard asset" — positioning it alongside gold and BTC rather than as a privacy tool. This is a deliberate narrative shift gaining traction across crypto audiences.

declared

Ecosystem

Zodl ships cross-platform unification update

Smarter swaps (tolerates small deposit shortfalls), consistent UI/UX across iOS and Android, terminology and localization unified. App Store + Google Play now live.

App Store + Google Play now live.

Zaino 0.2.0 goes stable

ZingoLabs graduated months of release candidates to production-ready 0.2.0 on March 25. This Rust-based block data server replaces the old Go-based lightwalletd. ZCG formally announced it.

production-ready 0.2.0

ZecHub launches testnet bounty platform

Sign in with GitHub, enter a testnet address, create tasks, receive TAZ. A lightweight way to coordinate community contributions. Announcement.

Announcement.

Zcomm 2026 wraps up

The Zcash Foundation's first virtual conference concluded March 24. Naomi Brockwell spoke on privacy communities. Recordings coming to YouTube.

Recordings coming to YouTube.

Zcash sponsors Neo-Cypherpunk Summit

web3privacy announced Zcash as member and sponsor of the upcoming summit. Brand positioning alongside the broader cypherpunk movement.

web3privacy announced

Nordic Shield ships first mainnet anchor

A state-channel verification system using ZEC as an on-chain commitment layer mined its first anchor on block 3,286,631. Verification tooling (nsm1-verify) and FROST design underway. Forum thread.

Forum thread.

Zapp messenger integrating ZEC payments

A privacy-first P2P messenger with ZEC payments (no phone number required), built during the Zypherpunk Hackathon. Waitlist live at justzappit.xyz. Also building a community merchant map. Forum.

Forum.

Governance & Grants

Coinholder-Directed Grants Q1 — Voting Open Through March 31

Voting remains open until Tuesday, March 31 at 11:59 PM UTC. The mechanism went down briefly on March 27 but was restored. Six projects in the pool: ZChat, zec-pay.com, Maya Protocol shielded support, ZK Email, zcash.me, and Pepper-Sync. Also includes a vote on rescinding the Q4 2025 Bootstrap Org grant. Proposals need at least 420,000 ZEC participating to be approved. Vote using the Zkool wallet with Orchard notes.

Voting

ZCG Calls for Community Feedback on 11 Open Proposals

ZCG published a 4-tweet thread requesting community input on a batch of open grant applications — one of the biggest public feedback rounds in recent months.

Under review:

#255 — Open Wallet Standard Zcash Integration (Kenbak/Atmosphere Labs) — Bring Zcash + PCZT signing into MoonPay's Open Wallet Standard, backed by PayPal, Circle, Ripple, Solana Foundation, and 15+ others. Zcash would be the first privacy-preserving chain in OWS.
#254 — REPUTRANS — ZK reputation portability for gig workers. Novel use case.
#253 — Berlin Blockchain Week — 4-person Zcash presence at BBW/DappCon/Neo-Cypherpunk Summit (June 14–21).
#252 — Zcash Ghana — Educational adoption initiative.
#251 — Zallet ↔ zcashd RPC Parity Harness — CLI tool for migration testing. $20k. MVP already in PR #404.
#249 — Kenya University Education — Privacy/dev education.
#247 — Women in DeFi Summit 2026 — Event onboarding.
#246 — ACCUM — Fair Proof-of-Contribution protocol.
#244 — Formal Verification of Halo 2 in Lean 4 — $201,600 over 18 months for formal proofs of Orchard circuit gadgets. High-quality academic work.
#242 — PEER28 PEERPORTAL — Claims 170K users for a social network + ZEC payments. Challenged by ZCG member @artkor — unlikely to be approved.
#240 — Zecret Ballots by Gnosis Guild — $130k for shielded on-chain voting using FHE + ZKPs. Strong team.
#239 — Rhea Zcash Gateway — Cross-chain DeFi access.
#238 — Hera's Ledger — Financial tools for vulnerable populations.
#237 — Zcash Web Gateway — gRPC-web proxy for browser wallets.
#234 — Zebra Fuzzing Infrastructure — Coverage-guided fuzzing + OSS-Fuzz integration.

Previously approved:

#228 — OneKey Hardware Wallet — ✅ Shielded + transparent ZEC coming to OneKey hardware.

Recently declined:

weave-zec (#233), Shielded Micropayments SDK (#236), QSTN V2 (#235), Sentinel (#226), Veridex (#223) — all declined.

Have an idea for the Zcash ecosystem? Learn how to submit a grant proposal →

ZCG published a 4-tweet thread

Under review:

- #255 — Open Wallet Standard Zcash Integration (Kenbak/Atmosphere Labs) — Bring Zcash + PCZT signing into MoonPay's Open Wallet Standard
backed by PayPal
Circle
Ripple
Solana Foundation
and 15+ others. Zcash would be the first privacy-preserving chain in OWS.

Previously approved:

- #228 — OneKey Hardware Wallet — ✅ Shielded + transparent ZEC coming to OneKey hardware.

Recently declined:

- weave-zec (#233)
Shielded Micropayments SDK (#236)
QSTN V2 (#235)
Sentinel (#226)
Veridex (#223) — all declined.

Protocol & Development

Zebra 4.3.0

Released March 25. Highlights beyond the security fixes: ZIP-235 Network Sustainability Mechanism support, fixed Regtest block propagation, getblocksubsidy RPC miner reward calculation fix for pre-Canopy blocks, and improved profiling tooling. Network now running /Zebra:4.3.0/.

Released March 25

ZF Engineering Update (March 9–22)

Posted March 24. Key items: Zallet progressing on z_importkey/z_exportkey for Sapling (RPC parity with zcashd). Active ZIP work on block time reduction (75s→25s proposal), ZIP 316 Rev 2, ZIP 2003/2004 (NU7 planning), and ZIP-204 P2P protocol. FROST: COCKTAIL-DKG tracking opened; frostd can now bind to non-loopback addresses.

Posted March 24.

Zaino 0.2.0 Stable

Released March 25. The Rust-based block data layer replacing lightwalletd is now production-grade after months of RCs. ZCG called it "focused on getting it ready for real-world use."

Released March 25.

Zingolib v3.0.1

Released March 26. Bug fixes: webpki-roots downgrade revert, Windows SQLite compatibility, pepper-sync v0.3.0.

Released March 26.

Z3 Weekly Dev Update

Pacu posted the latest Z3 update on March 27. Regular cadence continues.

Pacu posted the latest Z3 update

SDK Crate Versions (unchanged this week)

| Crate | Latest | Notes |
|-------|--------|-------|
| zcash_client_backend | 0.21.2 | Released Mar 10 |
| orchard | 0.12.0 | Dec 2025 |
| zcash_primitives | 0.26.4 | Dec 2025 |

Tweets of the Week

"What happens to financial privacy in an AI-native world? Zcash offers one answer: optional privacy, with selective disclosure when needed. Privacy isn't a feature. It's infrastructure."
— @Grayscale

"This Canton guy has 'co-author of Zcash's zkSNARK' in his bio, which is basically a total lie? He apparently contributed some code to libsnark circa 2014, mainly the gadgetlib2 portion of it that we never used in Zcash."
— @ebfull

"When the sun comes up, I open my curtains so I can see the beautiful world. When it goes down again, I close them so that passersby can't see into my home. That's normal."
— @zooko

Forum Highlights

Zwap: Unlinkable Cross-Chain Atomic Swaps

@Aditya posted research into HTLC-free cross-chain swaps that don't leak the shared preimage across chains. Standard HTLCs use the same hash on both sides, making swaps linkable — Zwap aims to fix that. Early stage but getting positive community feedback.

research into HTLC-free cross-chain swaps

Silo Private AI Chose ZEC as Payment Layer

Freysa AI's "Silo" platform explained why they picked ZEC: credit card payments break the privacy guarantee of a TEE-based AI platform. Now accepting ZEC alongside Stripe/Apple Pay. A concrete example of "privacy needs private payments."

explained why

Zcash Society (ZS): Privacy Governance Framework

@Michae2xl and others published a framework connecting network societies, cypherpunk values, and Zcash privacy infra for anonymous governance. Thought leadership positioning Zcash as governance infrastructure.

a framework

ZODL Update (March 23)

Josh Swihart's team update revealed Zodl processed $460k in swaps and 6,300 transactions in February (up from $394k in January). iOS at 39.2k installs, Android at 15.6k. Also confirmed Foundry mining pool launching April 2026 and mentioned CipherPay's Luma event ticketing integration.

team update

Privacy Corner

Why Timing Matters

Shielding and immediately unshielding is like putting on a disguise and taking it off in the same room.

When you move ZEC from a transparent address into the shielded pool and then quickly move it back out, the timing creates a link. An observer can match the deposit and withdrawal by amount + proximity — even without seeing inside the pool.

Better approach:
- Let shielded funds sit for at least several days before unshielding
- Longer dwell time = more transactions between your shield and unshield = harder to correlate
- Even better: stay shielded. Use shielded-to-shielded transactions whenever possible

ZecBlock's Privacy Risks page flags these timing patterns automatically. Check your transactions at zecblock.com/privacy-risks

Network Snapshot

ZEC Price

$215.67 · -0.6%

Market Cap

$3.59B · —

7d Volume

$2.26B ($282M/day avg) · —

Block Height

3,289,310 · —

Network Upgrade

NU6.1 (Zebra 4.3.0) · —

Chain Size

254.7 GB · —

Zcash Privacy Index

Privacy Score

31 / 100 · unchanged

Shielded Pool

5,149,687 ZEC (31.0% of supply) · -6,163 ZEC

Orchard Pool

4,509,339 ZEC (87.6% of shielded) · -2,831 ZEC

Sapling Pool

614,923 ZEC · -1,363 ZEC

Avg Shielded TX/Day

1,149 · -78 (↓6.3%)

Shielded TX %

31.7% of daily txs · +1.7pp

Cross-Chain Activity (24h)

Top Inflows

Arbitrum ($104K), Solana ($84K)

Top Outflows

Ethereum, Tron, NEAR

All-Time Swaps

102,494 ($1.36B total volume)

Network Health

Active Nodes

282 across 33 countries · +9.3%

Tor Nodes

21 · —

Avg Ping

148 ms · —

Hashrate

Near all-time high · —

Shielded pool dipped ~6,163 ZEC this week despite steady transaction activity — likely driven by the ZEC price pullback prompting some unshielding. However, the percentage of daily transactions that are shielded ticked up 1.7 points to 31.7%, and the node count grew 9.3% week-over-week. The network is getting healthier even as the pool fluctuates.

Explore live data →

Tool Updates

ZecBlock

Added a mempool preview card on the homepage so you can see pending transactions without leaving the main view. Also redesigned the cross-chain tracking page — every ZEC swap via NEAR Intents with volume, latency, and top pairs, all on-chain. Over 100K swaps tracked. zecblock.com

CipherPay

Big week. Launched the Machine Payments Protocol (MPP) — AI agents can now pay for APIs with shielded Zcash, and the server never sees who paid. Also shipped Luma event ticketing integration (ZODL featured it in their team update for PGP for Crypto events), agentic prepaid sessions with replay protection, and the WooCommerce plugin is now being prepared for WordPress.org Plugin Directory submission. cipherpay.app

Zipher

zipher-cli (alpha) shipped phases 0–4 this week: headless agent wallet with x402 paywall support, MPP client, NEAR Intents cross-chain swaps, UFVK/UIVK key export, and auto-sync. Available as @cipherpay/zipher-cli on npm. GitHub

What's Ahead

Mar 31Coinholder-Directed Grants Q1 voting closes (11:59 PM UTC)
AprilFoundry Services institutional Zcash mining pool launch
June 14–21Berlin Blockchain Week (ZCG grant #253 under review for Zcash presence)
UpcomingShielded voting ZIPs (following @greg0x PRs to Zodl repos)
UpcomingZallet alpha.4 (P2SH support, rewind-to-chain-state)
UpcomingZcomm 2026 session recordings on YouTube