Edition #8Sunday, May 10, 2026

Zcash Weekly — May 10, 2026

Quantum-recoverable wallets weeks away. ZF assumes stewardship of core Zcash assets. Three critical security releases in one week. Blockspäti Berlin announced for June. ZEC crosses $590.

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Quantum-Recoverable Wallets Arriving Within Weeks

Josh Swihart (ZODL) spoke at Consensus Miami's Privacy track and announced that Zcash will ship quantum-recoverable wallets within approximately 30 days, with full post-quantum cryptography targeted within 12–18 months. Swihart also stated that Zcash is targeting Mastercard/Visa-level throughput. The timeline was validated days later by zkDragon, who confirmed that the quantum recoverability security proofs were agreed upon at the Rome Dev Summit and the PRs are now live in the codebase. Decrypt covered the announcement. Decrypt · Forum

Decrypt

Zcash Foundation Assumes Stewardship of Core Community Assets

The Zcash Foundation officially took control of three foundational community assets: the zcash GitHub organization (librustzcash, zips, lightwalletd, zcashd), the z.cash website and domain, and the @Zcash handle on X. ZecHub received a multi-year grant to manage z.cash and @Zcash day-to-day, with z.cash now forwarding to zechub.wiki. ZODL, Shielded Labs, and independent contributors continue their existing work — all repositories remain open source with existing licenses. Forum

zcash GitHub organization

Three Critical Security Releases in Seven Days

In the most intense security sprint the network has seen, three critical releases landed in rapid succession:

Zebra v4.4.1 (May 4): Fixed a consensus-critical bug where V5 transactions signed with SIGHASH_SINGLE without a matching output were accepted by Zebra but rejected by zcashd — a chain split vector. All node operators who upgraded to v4.4.0 needed to upgrade again.
zcashd v6.12.2 (May 6): Patched several vulnerabilities that could have caused consensus divergence with Zebra, including a Sapling deserializer flaw.
zcashd v6.12.3 (May 8): Emergency fix for CVE-2024-52911 — a use-after-free in ConnectBlock() that allows any peer to crash a node by sending a crafted invalid block. Network-wide outage possible via amplification.

This is the 4th coordinated security cycle since mid-April. All zcashd and Zebra node operators should be on the latest versions immediately. Zebra v4.4.1 · zcashd v6.12.3

Zebra v4.4.1

Ecosystem

Blockspäti Berlin — June 17–19.

WebZero announced that Zcash will take over the legendary Berlin club for three days during Berlin Blockchain Week. Over 12 side events, open daily from 11am to 4am. Privacy workshops, co-learning sessions, and DJ lineups planned. This is the largest European Zcash community event of the year. Announcement

Announcement

Zcash Dev Summit + ZK Week in Rome (May 7–14).

zkSummit, ZKProof, Eurocrypt, and the Zcash Dev Summit all ran concurrently in Rome. Project Tachyon presented on recursive proving and oblivious synchronization at zkSummit. The quantum recoverability security proofs were agreed upon during the summit. An unprecedented concentration of ZK talent in one city.

ZF Welcomes New Global Events Manager.

The Zcash Foundation hired Valerie Leisten as Global Events and Operations Manager — a signal that ZF is scaling its community presence. Forum

Forum

CipherPay WooCommerce Plugin on WordPress.org.

CipherPay for WooCommerce is now available directly from the WordPress Plugin Directory. One-click install, shielded Zcash payments in minutes. Non-custodial, open source. WordPress powers 43% of all websites. WordPress

WordPress

$3B in Shielded Self-Custody.

Swihart confirmed that over $3 billion in zcash:native is currently stored in shielded self-custody — a milestone figure that frames Zcash's real-world usage beyond speculation.

Governance & Grants

Grant Status (verified via GitHub API, May 10):

Under Review (👀 Ready For ZCG Review):
| # | Grant | Applicant |
|---|-------|-----------|
| 293 | WalletConnect v2 Integration + BazaarSwap | flynnthemaestro |
| 292 | Rore — High-Performance Rust UI Engine | umidjon |
| 291 | Cypherpunk Policy Dinner ("CPD") Sponsorship | paulbrigner |
| 290 | Pesa ya Siri Tanzania 2026 | — |
| 289 | Zcash Arabia (May–September 2026) | ZArabia |
| 288 | Quantir Privacy-Safe Risk Intelligence | Quantir |
| 287 | Zcash in Internet Freedom Crowdfunding | Tor Project |
| 286 | KBCC 2026 Sponsorship & Adoption | — |
| 284 | Zcash University Outreach — Mexico 2026 | — |

Recently Completed:
- #283 — Grassroots Marketing at DWeb Camp: Approved ✅, startup payment completed, marked as complete.

Retroactive Grants — Q2 Deadline May 14:
Coinholder-directed retroactive grant proposals are being collected. Review period begins in 4 days. Multiple teams have submitted including CipherPay. If you or a team you nominate completed work on Zcash, this is the window. Forum

Protocol & Development

ZF Engineering Update (Apr 20 – May 3):

Zebra v4.4.1 shipped with a batch of fixes: memory allocation bugs in block deserializers (coinbase data, Equihash solution, Sapling spend vectors), a stale sighash bug in the script validator, RPC security fixes, and the 160-header-message protocol cap. Also: new Criterion benchmark suite covering Sprout/Sapling/Orchard proof verification, and Sentry observability alignment. Forum

Forum

FROST v3.0.0 Released.

The Zcash Foundation shipped FROST v3.0.0 — the stable release of threshold signatures for Zcash. This is foundational infrastructure for multi-party custody solutions.

zcash_client_sqlite Rapid Patching.

Two patch releases in 48 hours (0.20.0 → 0.20.1 → 0.20.2) indicate active bug fixing. Wallet developers should review changelogs before upgrading.

ZSAs Pulled from NU7.

Zcash Shielded Assets (tokenization on Zcash) have been removed from the NU7 network upgrade scope. Swihart indicated that new community polling will determine what remains in NU7. The 25-second block time proposal from Evan Forbes and ValarDragon remains under active discussion. ZecHub explainer

ZecHub explainer

Project Tachyon Security Framework.

Tachyon disclosed their security approach for the next shielded pool: formal verification, extensive fuzzing, detailed documentation, and continuous AI-assisted auditing, crediting zkSecurity. Sean Bowe noted that "the turnaround time for shipping complex novel cryptography continues to shorten."

Tweets of the Week

"Over $3B in zcash:native is currently stored in shielded self-custody."
— @jswihart · link

"Zcash Quantum Recoverability security proofs got agreed upon Wednesday, and now the PR's are in. Whose going to be first to test out quantum recoverability on mainnet 👀"
— @zkDragon · link

"We're using every tool at our disposal to ensure that Zcash's next shielded pool meets the high security expectations of our users. This includes formal verification, extensive fuzzing, detailed documentation, and continuous AI-assisted auditing."
— @TachyonZcash · link

Forum Highlights

"Nothing More American" (#55642)

@genzcash ZEC video reposted on the forum, framing financial privacy as an American value. Light but culturally resonant thread.

Rore UI Engine (#55634)

Active technical discussion. hanh provided architectural critique. pitmutt noted Zenith doesn't use Electron. Community interested but evaluating whether WGPU is the right abstraction for wallet UIs.

Hito Hardware Wallet (#55539)

Mikhail responded to community questions. 27 likes, 256 views — strong engagement for a hardware wallet grant.

Cypherpunk Policy Dinner (#55592)

17 posts, 48 likes, 234 views. Active debate on ZCG sponsoring a DC policy dinner. Community divided on whether ZCG funds should go to advocacy events.

Zebra v4.4.1 Thread (#55588)

New activity from fivelittleducks (May 10) — security fix discussion continuing.

Privacy Corner

Why Amount Privacy Matters

When you send a transparent Bitcoin transaction, the world sees the exact amount: 0.1337 BTC. Chain analysis firms build profiles from these amounts. Repeated payments of the same value link transactions together. Unusual amounts stand out. Round numbers suggest purchases.

Zcash's shielded transactions encrypt the amount. An observer sees that a transaction occurred, but not how much moved. This is critical for both individuals and merchants:

For individuals: No one can tally your balance by watching your activity.
For merchants: Competitors can't see your revenue. Customers can't see each other's purchases.

Practical tip: When moving funds between transparent and shielded, avoid shielding and immediately unshielding the exact same amount. Use the shielded pool for multiple operations before moving funds — this breaks the timing and amount linkability that chain analysis depends on.

Network Snapshot

ZEC Price

$590.08 · -1.5% (24h)

Market Cap

$9.85B · —

24h Volume

$708.3M · —

Block Height

3,337,830 · +8,001

Network Upgrade

NU6.1 (Zebra 4.4.1) · —

Chain Size

255.75 GB · +1.2 GB

Zcash Privacy Index

Privacy Score

31 · 31

Shielded Pool

5,152,249 ZEC · 5,152,566 ZEC

Shielded % of Supply

30.8% · 30.8%

Orchard % of Shielded

87.9% · 87.8%

Avg Shielded TX/Day

1,750 · 1,499

Privacy Metrics (Week-over-Week)

Privacy Score

31 · 31

Shielded Pool

5,152,249 ZEC · 5,152,566 ZEC

Shielded % of Supply

30.8% · 30.8%

Orchard % of Shielded

87.9% · 87.8%

Avg Shielded TX/Day

1,750 · 1,499

Cross-Chain Activity (24h)

Total Volume

$3.83M

Total Swaps

512

Top Inflow

Ethereum ($1.15M)

Top Outflow

Ethereum ($1.05M)

All-Time Swaps

120,547

All-Time Volume

$1.49B

Network Health

Active Nodes

270

Countries

Tor Nodes

7d Node Change

+0.7%

Avg Block Time

76s

24h Transactions

6,559

Shielded transactions per day jumped 16.7% this week — the highest sustained activity since the late-April ZEC price surge. Despite this, the shielded pool itself is nearly flat (-317 ZEC), suggesting active usage (shield → transact → unshield) rather than pure accumulation. The Orchard pool continues its dominance at 87.9% of all shielded ZEC, with Sapling holding steady. Cross-chain swap volume is healthy at $3.8M/24h across 512 swaps.

Live data at cipherscan.app/privacy

Tool Updates

CipherScan

The CipherScan API is now fully public — no authentication, no sign-up required. Block data, privacy stats, transaction lookups, cross-chain swap tracking, and Zcash Names resolution are all available at open endpoints. If you're building on Zcash, this is free infrastructure. — cipherscan.app

CipherPay

CipherPay for WooCommerce is now available on the WordPress Plugin Directory. Install directly from your WordPress dashboard — accept shielded Zcash payments in minutes. Non-custodial, private by default, open source. — cipherpay.app

What's Ahead