Zcash Sovereign

Privacy used to be the default. Now it's something you have to choose.

This account is about why that choice matters, and about Zcash, the network that made private money real using zero knowledge proofs.

What you'll find here:
• How Zcash actually works, explained in plain language
• Updates from across the Zcash ecosystem
• Why financial privacy matters, even if you think you have nothing to hide

Privacy isn't about hiding. It's about deciding who gets to look.

Follow along. $ZEC

On Bitcoin, anyone can count your inputs and outputs. That count alone gives a lot away, starting with which output is probably your change.

Orchard, the newest Zcash shielded pool, hides that too. It has no separate inputs and outputs. It has actions.

Each action pairs one spend with one output, and either half can be a dummy that carries zero value. So a transaction with three actions might combine three of your notes or just one, and pay one person or three. From outside, every version looks the same.

Wallets also pad every Orchard bundle to at least two actions, so even a simple payment never shows whether any change came back to you.

What an observer can count is actions. That's why ZIP 317 fees scale with them and why NU7 caps them per block. What they can't tell is how many coins you merged, how many people you paid, or which output was yours.

Change detection is one of the first tricks chain analysts reach for on transparent chains. In Orchard there's nothing to detect. $ZEC

Since NU7, every Zcash block sets aside most of its fees. Not burned. Parked.

Under ZIP 235, 60% of each block's transaction fees leave circulation and the miner keeps 40%, so including your transaction still pays. Rounding goes in the miner's favor, and no new transaction field was needed, because every node computes the amount from fees it already validates. Shielded transactions publish their fee anyway, so the rule works without revealing anything else about them.

The difference from Ethereum's EIP 1559 burn is where the coins go next. They sit in the NSM Value Balance, which is public consensus state anyone can check. From block 8,939,664, around early 2031, ZIP 237 has each block reissue a fixed portion of that balance on top of the normal reward.

Why bother? Block rewards keep halving, and one day fees have to carry the security budget. This turns today's fees into a smoother reward stream later, without touching the 21M cap or the four year halving rhythm.

@ShieldedLabs designed it, and @ZcashFoundation's Zebra 7.0.0 enforces it. This morning Shielded Labs pointed to an explorer that tracks the reserve filling up block by block.

Fees today, security later. $ZEC

Zcash used to make you pick an address format and hope the other wallet spoke the same one. A unified address packs every receiver your wallet supports into one string starting with u1, and both wallets pick the strongest receiver they share. Share one QR, keep Orchard preferred when both sides can do it, and new receivers can show up later without a fresh address. Keep this one for the next time someone asks which Zcash address to paste.

Cake Wallet 6.5.3 is out, and Zcash on @Ledger finally works the way it should inside @cakewallet.

Add a Zcash wallet from your Ledger. Your keys stay on the device. You approve every send and every shield on the screen. Sends always leave from the shielded balance, so the private path is the default path.

A few details that matter:
• Need Ledger Zcash app 3.9.2 or later
• Works on Android over Bluetooth or USB, and on iPhone and iPad over Bluetooth
• Receive to Shielded, Unified, or Public addresses
• If ZEC lands at a Public address, tap Unshielded Funds Detected, then Shield Funds, and approve on the Ledger

Software Cake wallets still autoshield transparent receipts above 0.0003 ZEC. Ledger wallets keep that step intentional, which is the right trade for hardware custody.

NU7 ready wallets plus hardware that can actually spend shielded $ZEC. That is the plumbing privacy needs.