Edition #24Sunday, September 6, 2026

Zcash Weekly — September 6, 2026

Zakura 1.3.x brings an experimental node-validation stack to operators, while Vizor demonstrates shielded Ledger signing and cbZEC reaches Base.

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Zakura 1.3.x Adds the Experimental P2Pv2 Stack

Last week’s issue covered Zakura Common’s cryptographic speedups. The new operator story is Zakura 1.3.x: 1.3.0 was the first node release built on Common, and the official download page now lists 1.3.2, released September 5. The release adds an experimental P2Pv2 consensus engine with verified-header-chain and bounded-DAG validation, alongside peer discovery, RPC visibility, and lightwalletd integration.

The operator detail matters: the experimental engine is disabled by default on mainnet. This is not a consensus change that has activated everywhere; it is a new validation path for operators to evaluate. Mainnet operators should read the release notes and use the current download rather than treating this as a routine wallet update. Zakura 1.3.0 release notes · Current downloads

Zakura 1.3.0 release notes

Vizor Demonstrates a Shielded Ledger Transaction

Vizor published a development-build demonstration of a shielded ZEC transaction signed on a Ledger. The wallet says it intends to be the first wallet supported when the Ledger app goes live, but the demo is not a claim that general Ledger support is already released.

That distinction aside, hardware signing is an important usability milestone: shielded ZEC needs to work with the custody and signing habits people already trust, not only inside software wallets. Vizor’s demonstration · Follow-up on the Ledger app

Vizor’s demonstration

Coinbase-Wrapped ZEC Arrives on Base

cbZEC, a Coinbase-custodied wrapped representation of ZEC, appeared on Base this week and began showing up in Base ecosystem integrations. It creates a new route into Base liquidity and DeFi, but it is not a shielded-pool asset: the token is a transparent wrapped representation backed by ZEC held in custody.

That makes this an access and liquidity story, not a privacy upgrade. Users should understand which side of the bridge they are using and where the privacy boundary ends. Ecosystem digest · cbZEC contract and market data

Ecosystem digest

Ecosystem

ZODL shipped iOS 3.11.0.

The release improves automatic server selection, reducing unnecessary endpoint switching for mobile users. Release announcement

Release announcement

Konclave reports its first live collective treasury use.

Zcash Brazil is using the beta FROST vault as a 3-of-4 Ironwood treasury for payroll and proposals. v0.3.0 tagged with a privacy-focused hardening pass. Konclave update

Konclave update

The Arborist Call recording is available.

The bi-weekly protocol meeting covers deployment logistics, consensus-node implementation issues, and protocol research. Recording · Arborist Call archive

Recording

Governance & Grants

The important governance deadline is still ahead: the NU7 coinholder vote and ZCAP poll close September 14 at 19:00 UTC. The Q3 retroactive-grants review closes September 16, followed by the coinholder poll on September 17. NU7 voting page · Q3 review

ZCG’s issue labels now give a clearer picture than last week’s list of proposals:

Approved: the BTCPayServer multi-store GraphQL client, Pretty Good Policy for Zcash, WalletConnect integration, and ZECsy’s revised community programme.
Declined: ZEC Invoice Preflight, ZecBit’s ZSA infrastructure proposal, the Zebra test-effectiveness audit, Halo2 verifier testing, Rvess Pay, and SHPH.
Under review: a Zaino security audit, 0xramp, a SeedSigner for shielded ZEC, the Colosseum Zcash track, and Zcash East Africa.
New and untriaged: zcashlib, Coin Wallet integration, Sybil Wedge, and a Zcash awareness campaign.

Protocol & Development

Zakura 1.3.x is the only new node release this week (see Top Stories). Current public releases remain Zebra 6.3.0 and Zaino 0.9.0.

Tweets of the Week

“Behold, @zkDragon's legendary tour of Zcash's cryptography code. 675% faster in 24 days, on a desktop. 2-3x those gains on recent iPhones.”
— @ebfull · tweet

“Ladies and gentlemen, we got it working. Shielded ZEC transaction, signed on a Ledger.”
— @vizorwallet · tweet

“Source code is no longer a moat. Any code can be quickly replicated. For Zcash, 10 years of fair POW distribution cannot be replicated. And now, the software stack on top is shipping and being optimized faster than you can blink.”
— @jswihart · tweet

Forum Highlights

Mixnet proxy for light wallets is making progress.

Testing of Zcash light-wallet traffic routed through the Nym mixnet identified and resolved a reliability issue, bringing failure rates from 21% to zero in testing. Still research-stage, not a production release. Thread

Thread

Konclave’s beta hardening is tied to real use.

Latest update adds private per-vault reads and sealed member secrets. Zcash Brazil is using a 3-of-4 vault for its treasury. Update

Update

NU7 vote and Q3 retroactive grants

are the two major open governance threads. NU7 voting · Q3 review

NU7 voting

Privacy Corner

The Single-Bit Problem

Maxime Desalle’s Mastering Zcash is useful because it treats privacy as a system property, not a magic label attached to a transaction. A shielded transaction can hide its sender, receiver, and amount while the surrounding workflow still reveals a great deal.

The failure can be as small as one bit: a deposit and withdrawal happen within minutes; a merchant knows exactly which customer requested a memo; an exchange sees the same unusual amount enter and leave; or a wallet reuses a public identity around a private payment. One clue can sharply reduce the anonymity set even when the cryptography is working perfectly.

Practical rule: do not treat shielding as the end of the privacy workflow. Avoid immediate, uniquely sized shield/unshield paths when your threat model matters, keep exchange and merchant identities separate from personal addresses, and prefer wallets that make the private path the default. Privacy is not only what the protocol hides; it is also what the surrounding routine makes easy to infer.

Network Snapshot

ZEC Price

$1,025.93 · +21.0%

Market Cap

$17.35B · —

24h Volume

$593.0M · —

Block Height

3,474,868 · +9,167

Node Software at Tip

Zakura 1.3.0 · —

Chain Size

261.1 GB · +3.0 GB

Zcash Privacy Index

Privacy Score

39 · 37

Shielded TX % (daily)

57.7% · 39.8%

Total Shielded Supply

4,868,259 ZEC · 4,858,030 ZEC

Orchard Pool

438,308 ZEC · 470,512 ZEC

Ironwood Pool

3,889,723 ZEC · 3,840,173 ZEC

Sapling Pool

518,240 ZEC · 524,753 ZEC

Sprout Pool

22,591 ZEC · 22,591 ZEC

Cross-Chain Activity (24h)

24h Volume

$13.15M

24h Swaps

2,383

All-Time Volume

$333.1M

All-Time Swaps

46,211

Cross-chain volume is access and liquidity data, not a measure of shielded usage. Tron and Bitcoin led inflows; Ethereum and Solana led outflows.

Network Health

Peers

418

Hashrate

27.58 GSol/s

Avg Block Time

75.1s

24h Transactions

16,731

Active Nodes

531

Countries

Tor Nodes

Explore live data →

Tool Updates

CipherScan:

Performance improvements to the Network and Ironwood pages — significantly faster load times and lighter payloads. Release · Network dashboard

CipherPay:

No new features this week.

What's Ahead

Now – Sep 14NU7 coinholder vote + ZCAP poll close at 19:00 UTC
Sep 16Q3 Retroactive Grants review period closes
Sep 17–29Q3 Retroactive Grants coinholder poll
Sep 30 (estimated)Zakura 1.3.0 mainnet support boundary at height 3,501,339; operators should follow the latest release notes
Oct 27–29Zcon7, Cancún — Zcash turns 10