Zcash Open Development Lab

ZODL has raised $25+M. This is the largest private venture investment into a Zcash-focused team to date. We’re bringing private digital money to the global mainstream. Onward.

We’ve launched a dedicated support account on X.

ZEC is now on robinhood we have only just begun

Heading to the Capitol now to show support for this important legislation…

Most don't know, Cypherpunk is not a DAT. I LOVE their mission, and I'm proud to have them on the cap table of @zodl_co. Onward.

⚠️ Zodlers: The `us.zec.stardust[dot]rest` server is currently under maintenance. In case you're having difficulties in @Zodl_app, you can change your current server with: '...' > More > Advanced Settings > Choose Your Server support.zodl.com/article/15-cha…

Well structured analysis detailing the possible effects of the proposed Zcash block time reduction on wallet sync. Net: reducing block times to 25s does not degrade sync performance.

"Every week you see headlines around data breaches and private information being public. Up until now, no one was really doing anything with it. But as soon as you apply AI to those databases, that information can really be used against you. If there's an economic incentive for it to be used against you, someone will. And they'll use AI to do it." -- @will__mcevoy

Security Disclosure: We've released zcashd v6.12.1, and the Zcash Foundation has released Zebra v4.3.1, addressing four vulnerabilities – including an Orchard action-encoding bug that could crash nodes and a related consensus-split issue between the two clients. Mining pools running both implementations have already deployed patches, and we have no evidence that any of these bugs were exploited. User funds and privacy were never at risk, and no ZEC supply inflation was possible. Please upgrade and see our blog for full details. zodl.com/zcashd-zebra-a…

Great read from @Blockworks! "Taken together, Q1 demonstrates that Zcash's core value proposition—private, low-cost, and censorship-resistant value transfer—remains intact and continues to strengthen at the protocol level. At the institutional level, the transition from a centralized contributor model to a multi-entity, venture-backed ecosystem introduces coordination risk but also reduces single-entity dependency and broadens the network's support base. Zcash remains positioned as one of the few blockchain systems where long-term value is derived not from maximizing economic extraction, but from maximizing privacy itself."

This weekend I bought █████████ at Barnes & Noble and a bowl of █████████ and ███████ with extra ████████ at Chipotle. All paid with shielded Zcash via @Zodl_app + @FlexHQ. Encrypted commerce is already here. 😎🛡️

There's an obvious answer here that everyone's dancing around: Crypto is simply harder now. Not because it was all a scam or funny money or whatever. Crypto is harder because it's winning, and there are way more mature companies and products at scale today. This makes incumbents harder to unseat. Coinbase, Binance, Solana, Base, Polymarket, Circle, Tether--they're all bigger and better and more entrenched than they were even just a few years ago. This is a natural thing that happens with industries. In the early Internet, it was a lot easier to build a social network. Very hard after 2015. A couple years ago, there was room to attack the big AI labs, now it's almost impossible to get any distribution at all. That doesn't mean there's no room for startups. But it does mean the land grab phase is over. During the land grab, almost anyone can win given the right timing. But we're in the midgame now, and most of the board is already occupied. At this stage, you'll have to attack someone powerful to take over some land, not just plant a flag in an empty field. There are still a few greenfield areas, and there's always room for people who can genuinely innovate. But crypto is harder now, and that means the ideas need to be sharper, the teams need to be stronger, and the bar is rightfully higher than a few years ago.

ZEC is up 54% this month and most people don't realize what's been happening under the surface. This isn't a random pump. Everything landed at the same time: SEC closed its investigation into Zcash in January - no enforcement action. The regulatory cloud that hung over privacy coins for years is gone. Grayscale filed to convert its $ZEC Trust into a spot ETF. The same playbook that sent BTC and ETH to new highs. Paradigm, a16z crypto, Winklevoss Capital, and Coinbase Ventures just put $25M into the Zcash Open Development Lab. Institutional money is betting on privacy infrastructure. Shielded pool hit all-time high - 31% of all ZEC is now in the encrypted pool. A year ago it was 11%. 59% of transactions are shielded. The privacy thesis is working in practice, not just in theory. Post-quantum readiness - Zcash is actively testing NIST-standardized lattice-based cryptography (ML-KEM, ML-DSA). After Google's March 31 paper showed quantum threats are 20x closer than expected, ZEC became one of the few chains with a credible PQ answer. Third halving completed - block rewards cut in half, deflationary pressure kicking in while demand rises. Network hashrate at all-time high - 16.54 GS/s. Miners are more committed than ever. NEAR Intents connects ZEC to 35+ chains - privacy coin with cross-chain reach it never had before. Privacy + post-quantum + institutional backing + ETF filing + supply shock. This is probably the strongest fundamental setup any privacy coin has ever had. Privacy was supposed to be the ideology play, not the profit play. ZEC didn't get the memo.

there was a fire in a slum in India. @jswihart’s friend asked him for help buying blankets and food. western union blocked the transaction. no reason given. 3 days, multiple banks, half a day at wells fargo to send a few hundred bucks. that’s the moment Josh decided to spend the rest of his career on this.

🧵Zodl 3.3.0 is live on iOS and Android. What's new: • Disconnect your Keystone hardware wallet from Settings • Updated Zcash SDK (2.4.8) • UX and UI fixes

Dev (@zkDragon) and I were talking about the near-future roadmap of quantum resilience in Zcash when these new papers dropped. His team has been working to bring ML-KEM and PIR into Zcash's payment protocol, for PQ privacy!

Freedom of speech, no surveillance and power to peacefully nullify a State. Zcash is the digital bill of rights.

Security Disclosure: A vulnerability in zcashd caused nodes to skip Sprout proof verification when processing new blocks. Mining pools have already deployed patches and it is certain that the bug was not exploited. All users' funds, including those in the Sprout pool, are safe. Please upgrade to zcashd v6.12.0 and see our blog for further details: zodl.com/security/zcash…

GPG Key Transition Statement We are transitioning the GPG signing key used to sign zcashd and Zallet APT packages, as well as standalone Android binaries (GitHub Releases for zodl-inc/zodl-android). This transition reflects the reorganization of the project under ZODL. forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/rotation-of-…

Zcash Network State. @zkDragon on the architecture of freedom. 100+ builders and creators. $10k+ in ZEC prizes. Onward.