ZCG Clears the Backlog — $455K Feature Branch Testnet Approved
The June 22 ZCG meeting was the most consequential grant session in months. Approved: Feature Branch Testnet ($455K — dedicated testnet for NU7-deferred features like ZSAs and NSM), Batch-vs-Single Verification Fuzzing, Zaino Release Stabilization, Zcash Ghana, and Zcash Türkiye 2026. Declined in the same session: Cross-Implementation ZIP Conformance, Zcash Studio, Zallet Operability (Z3 stack), Z-Vault, ZPAD-20, Hostile-Companion Fixture Pack, Zcash Arabia, and Zinfra Africa. The Feature Branch Testnet is notable — it gives ZSA and NSM developers a sandbox that runs in parallel with mainnet, unblocking work that was stalled by the Ironwood pivot. Meeting Minutes
ZODL Joins the Blockchain Association
ZODL officially joined the Blockchain Association, the largest US-based crypto industry trade group. This is a DC policy play — putting Zcash's privacy-first position directly in front of the lobbying apparatus that shapes US digital asset regulation. Cypherpunk called it "a win for Zcash." Combined with PGPZ's June 30 inaugural breakfast and the DC Privacy Summit in planning, there's now an organized Zcash presence in Washington for the first time. Tweet
Ironwood ZIPs Take Shape — Fees, Migration, and Deployment Spec
Three critical PRs landed in zcash/zips this week: ZIP 317 adds Ironwood-pool action fees via a revisions mechanism (PR #1314, June 27), ZIP 256 specifies deployment of consensus bug fixes between NU6.1 and NU6.2 (PR #1295), and the draft Ironwood migration ZIP (PR #1299) continues to evolve. Additionally, protocol spec refactoring for Ironwood (PR #1300) is actively being worked. The migration ZIP now specifies a privacy-preserving procedure for moving Orchard funds to Ironwood — but explicitly notes it does not yet account for proposed anchor height/auth data changes. Wallet devs should track this carefully. ZIP 317 PR · Migration PR