Zcash Weekly — April 5, 2026

//Top Stories

Crosslink Incentivized Feature Nets — Season 1 Starts April 15

Shielded Labs is moving Crosslink from prototype to productization. Jason McGee (Executive Director) announced a series of incentivized "feature nets" where participants earn real ZEC for staking, running finalizers, and mining. Season 1 launches April 15 with 25 ZEC allocated from a 500 ZEC total pool across all seasons. Rewards follow a 40% miners / 40% stakers / 20% dev fund split.

The community response has been enthusiastic — active sign-ups from ZODL developers (Pacu), infrastructure operators (zk_nd3r plans to co-test ZAP1 attestation on the feature net), and community builders. This is the first time Zcash users can directly participate in testing the hybrid PoW/PoS consensus layer that could define the protocol's future — and earn ZEC doing it.

Interested? DM @aquietinvestor on the forum for the Signal coordination group.

Post-Quantum Roadmap Video Goes Viral

A whiteboard session between Sean Bowe (@ebfull) and Dev (@zkDragon) discussing Zcash's post-quantum roadmap became the highest-engagement Zcash content of the quarter. The video covered three critical milestones: quantum recoverability shipping soon, full post-quantum privacy through PIR (Private Information Retrieval) and ML-KEM integration with the Tachyon upgrade, and a path to PQ soundness alongside major scale improvements.

The timing matters: Google published a cryptocurrency-specific quantum vulnerability paper this week suggesting Q-Day could arrive by late 2029. Zcash is the only major blockchain with a concrete post-quantum roadmap being actively implemented. Media coverage appeared on CCN, Bitfinex Blog, and CoinMarketCap.

Zcash Mining Decentralizes — No Single Pool Above 50%

For the first time in months, no single mining pool controls a majority of Zcash's hashrate. ViaBTC, which had been hovering at or above 50% — creating persistent 51% attack concerns — has dropped to around 36%. The shift removes one of the most common criticisms of Zcash's proof-of-work security model.

The timing lines up with Foundry Services reportedly preparing to launch a Zcash mining pool this month. If Foundry enters, Zcash would have at least three significant pools competing for hashrate — a meaningfully healthier distribution than the near-monopoly of recent months. For merchants and exchanges, fewer mining centralization concerns means stronger finality guarantees. For the network, it means the cost to attack just went up.

//Ecosystem

• MeileDVPN accepts shielded ZEC — The decentralized VPN network now accepts shielded Zcash payments. ZecHub is hosting a live demo walkthrough. Another concrete merchant adoption story — privacy-preserving VPN paid with privacy-preserving money.

• Zcash at EthCC Cannes — Multiple Zcash community members attended Ethereum's biggest conference, connecting with Allium Labs, Fhenix, and ziskvm teams. Cross-pollination between Zcash privacy tech and the Ethereum world continues.

• ZcashIND launches online sessions — India's Zcash community is going live with bilingual community sessions covering what Zcash is, how shielded transactions work, and how to get involved. Arabic and Turkish communities also active. Global grassroots is real and distributed.

• Zodl CrossPay keeps growing — "It turns any crypto payment into a private payment. You send shielded ZEC. They receive BTC, USDC, SOL." The "privacy abstraction layer" messaging is landing. Details.

• Zig comes to Zcash — Developer gorusys published [zcash-addr.zig](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/building-a-zig-foothold-in-the-zcash-ecosystem-starting-with-address-encoding/55190), a pure-Zig library for encoding and decoding all Zcash address types. Language diversity in tooling expands.

• ZODL airdrop scam warning — A fake "ZODL token" airdrop circulated this week. BostonZcash flagged it, zooko amplified the warning. There is no ZODL token. Stay shielded, stay skeptical.

//Governance & Grants

ZCG Meeting Minutes — March 30

• Zebra Coverage-Guided Fuzzing Infrastructure (#234, $30K) — Startup payment completed.
• Zcash Ghana (#252) — African community education. Startup payment completed.

Under Review

• #263 — Mastering Zcash Video Series ($23.5K) — 8 YouTube videos + 3 podcast episodes (ft. Sean Bowe, Josh Swihart). Strong community backing. See Forum Highlights.
• #262 — Zecboat Bridge — FROST-secured wrapped wSOL on Zcash.
• #258 — ZAP1 Protocol Hardening + Zaino Integration ($18K) — Structured memo attestation protocol.
• #256 — Feature Branch Testnet + Developer Tooling
• #255 — Open Wallet Standard Zcash Integration ($25K) — PCZT signing for MoonPay's OWS, backed by PayPal, Circle, Ripple, Solana Foundation.
• #253 — Berlin Blockchain Week Marketing — 4-person Zcash delegation.
• #244 — Formal Verification of Halo 2 in Lean 4 ($201.6K) — Academic formal proofs of Orchard circuit gadgets.

New This Week

• #264 — ZecShield: Solana ↔ Zcash Privacy Bridge ($48K) — FROST 3-of-5 threshold signatures + economic bonds for trustless bridging. Early stage, low traction so far.

DWeb Camp Berlin — Applications Open

ZCG will fund 2-3 representatives to attend DWeb Camp in Berlin (July 8-12). Travel and tickets covered. Application deadline: May 4.

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

//Protocol & Development

Sapling Deprecation Discussion Formally Begins

ValarDragon opened a formal process to move Sapling to withdraw-only status after NU7. The proposed timeline: quantum recoverability ships in wallets → users migrate Sapling funds to Orchard → token holder vote → Sapling freezes. With the Sprout vulnerability fresh in everyone's mind, Sean Bowe stated plainly: "Sapling is next, and the long but necessary process must start now." The thread is generating real community engagement — this is not a foregone conclusion, it'll require a coinholder vote.

Sprout Vulnerability Patched — No Funds Lost

A vulnerability in zcashd (versions 3.1.0 through 6.11.x) that could have allowed nodes to skip Sprout proof verification was discovered and patched this week. White-hat researcher Alex "Scalar" Sol found it via AI-assisted code audit on March 23. ZODL, Shielded Labs, and the Zcash Foundation coordinated a fix in three days — mining pools deployed it before public disclosure, the bug was confirmed not exploited, and it's now fixed in zcashd v6.12.0. Zebra was not affected: it would have forked the chain if exploitation had been attempted, validating the multi-client diversity strategy.

ZODL Signing Key Transition

ZODL completed the organizational transition from Electric Coin Company by rotating GPG signing keys for zcashd, Zallet APT packages, and standalone Android binaries. APT users must import the new key before April 23 or package upgrades will fail.

Z3 Weekly Updates Continue

Pacu (ZODL Developer Relations) continues posting regular Z3 development updates. Development briefly paused for Sprout disclosure coordination but has fully resumed.

Zcash Arborist Call — April 2

The Zcash Foundation published the recording of the bi-weekly protocol development meeting. These calls cover upcoming protocol deployment logistics, consensus node implementation issues, and protocol research.

SDK Crate Versions (Unchanged)

//Tweets of the Week

"Sean Bowe and Dev recently did a whiteboard session to discuss Zcash's post-quantum roadmap: recoverability very soon, using PIR w/ the Tachyon upgrade to achieve full PQ privacy, and setting the stage for PQ soundness alongside major scale improvements."

"ViaBTC no longer has the majority of the Zcash hashrate."

"The era of radical transparency is over. Shield it or lose it."

//Forum Highlights

• Mastering Zcash Video Series — Maxime Desalle, author of the well-regarded Mastering Zcash guide (reviewed by zooko and Kris Nuttycombe), filed a ZCG grant for 11 pieces of professional content: 8 YouTube videos and 3 podcast episodes. Topics include "zk-SNARKs Explained Like You're 5," "AI Will Deanonymize You. Zcash Won't Let It," and "FROST: The Wallet Tech That Makes Zcash Unhackable." Budget: $23,500 — all production equipment ($11K+) self-funded. Frank Braun called it "a no-brainer at this price point."

• 45 Months Until Q-Day — A new thread unpacking Google's quantum timeline paper sparked discussion on Zcash's specific preparedness versus the broader crypto ecosystem. Community consensus: Tachyon's active development makes Zcash uniquely positioned.

• Open Wallet Standard Integration — Kenbak's grant thread proposing to add Zcash as the first privacy chain in MoonPay's Open Wallet Standard. Working demo already built — including an autonomous prediction market agent funded from Zcash's shielded pool, trading cross-chain on BNB. Paul Brigner (ZODL Chief Policy & Regulatory) publicly broke down the submission: "mobile app + headless CLI + MCP server for autonomous agents... this is not just a hackathon project."

• "Why AI Agents Need Private Payment Rails" — Thread by thejohnnycrypto arguing that autonomous AI agents require financial privacy as a design constraint, not a preference. Technical discussion with zk_nd3r on the implications for protocol-level payment infrastructure.

//Privacy Corner: Why Orchard Matters More Than Ever

Zcash has three shielded pools: Sprout (legacy, 25K ZEC), Sapling (transitional, 612K ZEC), and Orchard (current, 4.5M ZEC). Each generation improved on the cryptography of the last. When a vulnerability hits an older pool, every ZEC sitting in that pool is at risk.

This is why the community is now formally discussing making Sapling withdraw-only. Not because Sapling is broken — but because concentrating all shielded funds in the most modern pool (Orchard) maximizes the anonymity set, simplifies the attack surface, and prepares the network for quantum-resistant upgrades.

• If your ZEC is still in Sapling, move it to Orchard. Zodl and other modern wallets default to Orchard already.
• The larger the Orchard pool, the stronger everyone's privacy. Migration isn't just self-defense — it's a collective good.
• When Tachyon ships post-quantum recoverability, only Orchard will support it. Sapling funds will eventually need to move anyway.

//Network Snapshot

//Zcash Privacy Index

//Tool Updates

• CipherScan — Completed all 7 Milestone 2 deliverables — cross-chain transaction linking, bridge badges, and human-readable transaction summaries are now live. Verified against the production site. cipherscan.app
• CipherPay — Shipped Payment Links — create a reusable payment link, share it anywhere, get paid in shielded ZEC. No store setup, no plugin, no code. Each visit generates a fresh invoice with a unique diversified address. cipherpay.app

//What's Ahead

• Apr 15 — Crosslink incentivized feature net Season 1 begins
• Apr 23 — ZODL GPG signing key transition deadline (APT users must import new key)
• May 4 — DWeb Camp Berlin representative application deadline
• May 5-7 — Consensus Miami (Josh Swihart speaking)
• June 2026 — Mastering Zcash video production begins (pending grant approval)
• Q3 2026 — Crosslink Phase 2: Feature Production Readiness target
• Late 2026 — Tachyon mainnet deployment target
• Upcoming — Zallet alpha.4 (P2SH support, rewind-to-chain-state)