Zcash Weekly — April 26, 2026

//Top Stories

Robinhood Lists ZEC — First Major US Retail Platform Re-Entry

Robinhood officially listed ZEC on April 24, making it available to all US verified users including New York — a first for any privacy coin on a major brokerage platform. The listing used a compliance framework developed with ZODL and audited by Halborn Security: transparent t-address withdrawals only, shielded z-address off-platform transfers restricted.

Volume surged 400% in the first hour. With Coinbase having restricted privacy coins for years, Robinhood is now the dominant legitimate US retail option for ZEC exposure. The timing is deliberate — Robinhood chose ZEC as its re-entry point after a 2+ year pause in new asset listings.

Sources: Robinhood announcement · ZecHub digest

THORChain Adds Native ZEC Swaps

THORChain announced native Zcash support on April 24, enabling direct ZEC↔BTC/ETH swaps without wrapped assets or centralized intermediaries. Trading begins as nodes add Bifrost scanning support over the coming weeks.

This is the first time ZEC has been available on a major decentralized liquidity protocol with native chain support — no bridges, no wrapping, no trust assumptions beyond THORChain's validator set. Combined with the Robinhood listing, ZEC gained two fundamentally different liquidity channels in a single 48-hour window.

Source: THORChain announcement

FROST v3.0.0 Released — Stable, Production-Ready

The Zcash Foundation shipped FROST v3.0.0 on April 23, ending a months-long journey from RC0 (January 28). Key improvements over v2.x:

• SigningKey is no longer Copy and implements ZeroizeOnDrop — signing keys are wiped from memory on drop
• dkg::round2::Package gets the same memory-safety treatment
• Bug fix in verify_signature_share() for pre_commitment_aggregate() hook
• PublicKeyPackage::new() now takes min_signers as Option for backward-compatible deserialization

Sources: Forum · GitHub · ZF announcement

//Ecosystem

• ZODL "The Shot" Update — Josh Swihart posted the weekly ZODL product update (Apr 20). Zodl 3.4.0 is finalizing with Keystone hardware wallet integration, Ledger design completion, and Maya integration. Zodl 3.3.1 is moving through F-Droid review. Looking ahead: Time to Spendability UX and signing key rotation. Forum

• ZODL Launches X Support Account — Zodl wallet launched a dedicated support handle on X (Apr 25), a sign of maturing user-support infrastructure post-Zashi rebrand. Tweet

• $700K Single Swap via NEAR Intents — Dan (@txds_) documented a $700K ZEC↔ETH swap through Zodl wallet and NEAR Intents with less than 1% slippage. Real DeFi traction at institutional-grade volumes.

• Crosslink Season 1 Testnet v3 Live — Shielded Labs released prebuilt testnet binaries. Active community participation in the hybrid PoW/PoS consensus experiment continues.

• BazaarSwap Introduced — New cross-chain meta-DEX aggregator for ZEC (Flynn, forum #55479). Aims to solve the WalletConnect gap for Zcash, targeting Zodl, Brave Wallet, and Zingo as first integrations. Zooko engaged in the discussion. Forum

• ZecVault: Goal-Based Savings — gorusys (the ZcashGrantHub builder) proposed ZecVault: non-custodial savings vaults using derived shielded addresses with named goals, targets, and withdrawal friction. Seeking collaborators. Forum

• Tor Project Seeks Zcash Donations — Al Smith (Tor Project Director of Fundraising) posted on the Zcash forum asking the community to make ZEC a primary donation option for their May 19 crowdfunding campaign reaching 4.8M daily Tor Browser users. ZCG grant application coming. Forum

• Zooko Presents at the SEC — Zooko shared a personal clip from his SEC presentation featuring his mother's privacy story (Apr 26-27). Strong engagement across the ecosystem — a reminder that privacy isn't abstract, it's human. Tweet

• Zec Map in Development — Batuhan announced a $10K merchant discovery map app (forum #55505), asking the community to submit local merchants accepting ZEC. App development has started. Forum

//Governance & Grants

Approved

• Istanbul Blockchain Week (#270) — Completed ✅
• Mastering Zcash Video Series (#263) — Approved, $23,500
• Zcash Network School (#266) — Approved
• Rhea Finance Zcash Gateway — Approved
• Zcash Ghana Apr–Jun 2026 — Approved

Under Review

• Zush (#281) — "Quiet Money for Zcash, US Phase 1." Shielded ZEC spend path. Ready for ZCG Review.
• Revocable Private Delegation (#282) — Privacy-preserving governance voting research by Stefano De Angelis. Ready for ZCG Review.
• Grassroots Marketing at DWeb Camp (#283) — Zcash presence at DWeb Camp this summer, by the team behind Buenos Aires devConnect. Ready for ZCG Review.
• Zonp (#274) — Wallet-native commerce layer. Working mainnet prototype. Ready for ZCG Review.
• Hito (#280) — Orchard cold signing hardware wallet module. No labels yet.
• Mexico University Outreach (#284) — Zcash education in Mexican universities. Ready for ZCG Review.
• Formal Verification of CompactSize (#278) — Zebra-chain serialization verification. Ready for ZCG Review.
• VOTERAX (#279) — Ready for ZCG Review.
• ZEC Builders Hub – UNIABUJA (#277) — 60-seat developer hub in Nigeria. Ready for ZCG Review.
• TIBA (#276) — Teenage blockchain education in Africa. Ready for ZCG Review.

New This Week

• KBCC Kenya (#286) — Zcash Gold Sponsorship at Kenya Blockchain & Crypto Conference 2026 ($5,500). Filed April 27. Forum · GitHub
• Zush (#285) — Duplicate/updated filing of Zush application. No labels yet.

Ongoing

• Q2 2026 Retroactive Grants — Now accepting proposals. Deadline: May 14. Forum

//Protocol & Development

• FROST v3.0.0 — Stable release on crates.io. Full ZeroizeOnDrop memory safety. See Top Stories.
• orchard 0.13.0 — Released April 22 with unstable-frost feature flag, baking FROST support directly into the core Orchard crate. Signals protocol-level readiness for threshold signing.
• Zebra v4.3.1 — Released April 17 with critical security patches for four CVEs. All node operators should have upgraded by now.
• zcashd v6.12.1 — Released April 17. Patches same coordinated disclosure.
• ZIP 316 Revision 2 Discussion — dismad (ZecHub) opened a community discussion (forum #55515) on the incoming zu (privacy-only) and tu (transparent-augmented) address types, address expiration metadata, and new viewing key prefixes. Explicitly warned the community to prepare wallets early.
• Shielded Labs Hires Security Consultant — Jason McGee announced DefuseSec/Taylor Hornby engagement to proactively address AI-assisted vulnerability discovery. Three independent researchers found the April 17 vulnerability batch — a sign of the new threat baseline.
• OWS Integration Complete — Kenbak posted that Zcash is now fully integrated in the Open Wallet Standard with shielded PCZT signing — the first privacy chain in a standard backed by PayPal, Circle, Ripple, Solana Foundation, and 15+ others.
• No new crate updates for zcash_client_backend (still 0.21.2), zcash_primitives, or zcash_proofs this week.

//Tweets of the Week

"Privacy is a prerequisite to freedom from coercion. And this sense of freedom is innate to our sense of humanity and individuality. Ultimately, it's what makes life worth living. As the State becomes more coercive, Zcash becomes more valuable."

"Here is the 1m30s clip of the best part of my presentation to the SEC, the part featuring my mom, that Commissioner Peirce mentioned. ☺️"

"From Harry's blog: 'Only when one can be anonymous is one truly free. The freedom to express oneself without censorship and surveillance is a vital precondition for both the autonomous use of reason and the democratic evolution of society.'"

//Forum Highlights

• Anywhere Payment proposes native ZEC card program (forum #55497) — Ikenna from Anywhere Payment (Visa/Mastercard card issuing) posted exploring a ZEC-linked card with tiered KYC and selective disclosure compatibility. ZODL's Dan responded immediately. A first for card-rail integrators approaching the Zcash ecosystem directly.

• AI Agents + PoW + Privacy (forum #55455) — thejohnnycrypto argued that autonomous AI agents will need PoW settlement with protocol-level privacy. Quality philosophical thread touching the x402/machine-to-machine payments intersection.

• ZPrivDEX active (forum #55368) — hanh and zooko both contributing to the shielded AMM discussion. Zooko pushing for "real cryptographic arguments." Active development integrating PIR for Orchard notes.

• CompactTxStreamer Compatibility Gate (forum #55425) — Crackdevs proposed a CLI tool to black-box check lightwalletd/Zaino gRPC method compatibility across releases, preventing behavioral drift from reaching downstream wallets.

//Privacy Corner: Why Timing Matters

Even if your transaction is fully shielded, when you transact can leak information.

Consider: you receive ZEC to your shielded address, then immediately send it somewhere else. An observer who sees money leaving the transparent pool and then entering it again within minutes — at roughly the same amount — can make a statistical guess that it's the same user.

//Network Snapshot

//Zcash Privacy Index

Privacy Metrics

Cross-Chain Activity (24h)

Network Health

Live data: cipherscan.app/privacy-stats

//Tool Updates

//What's Ahead

• May 14 — Q2 2026 Retroactive Grants deadline
• May 19 — Tor Project crypto crowdfunding campaign launch (4.8M daily users)
• June 14–21 — Berlin Blockchain Week (Zcash Privacy Späti grant under review)
• Ongoing — Zodl 3.4.0 release (Keystone + Ledger), Crosslink Season 1 testnet, ZPrivDEX development, THORChain ZEC trading activation
• Watching — ZIP 316 Rev 2 wallet implementation timeline, Zallet alpha.4