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We are getting close to launching ZNS. Early access is planned for October 15. The ZNS SDK is already integrated with Zingo, Edge, Cake, Noir, Zucchini, ZecBlock, ZDEX, Cyze, and others. These wallets and applications will not need another update to keep name resolution working. We’re sharing our completed ZNS milestones and requesting payment under our Zcash Community Grants agreement. Reserve your name at zcashnames.com/reserve to join the early access period! Milestone 1: Whitepaper The ZNS whitepaper defines how a name becomes a chain-anchored proof, including the transition tuple σ = (α, n, u, p), tagged BLAKE2b derivations of rcm_σ and ψ_σ , the Name Note construction, and the trust model for the attested Mint. What’s in the repo Full ZNS protocol specification covering requests, Name Notes, the Mint, authorization, resolution, trust assumptions, and privacy. Name Note test vectors and request memo grammar for the request, relay, and response flow. Access-code restrictions for protected names. Canonical name rules: alphanumeric names only, with hyphens disallowed to avoid ambiguity. Status: Complete. Published August 25, with later updates for consistency fixes, access-code wording, and security review findings. GitHub: GitHub - zcashme/zns-whitepaper · GitHub Milestone 2: Orchard ZNS fork Ironwood introduces ψ and changes how rcm is derived for Name Notes. What’s in the repo Public Orchard fork with structured note randomness behind the unsafe-zns feature flag. Builder

thowar2: Zcash is not a Democracy, is is Nakamoto consensus, straight from Bitcoin. Better than Democracy due to exit choice. My guy, what? Bitcoin is one of the only chains which still allows user-activated soft forks, where users can force large miners to shift, and at the same time, allows miner-activated soft forks (such as Taproot). THAT is democracy. Zcash does not have that, does it? Network Upgrades are mandatory and forced. thowar2: LobbyFi / DeFi coins are a bad example because those were not strong monetary assets and majority of them were expected to go to zero and be grifts. The holders were not long term aligned. The voting quorum for the last coinholder vote was 2.1M ZEC. Greyscale alone holds ~0.5 million ZEC in their trust, and the document explicitly reads that their stakeholders retain voting rights in benefit of the trust by borrowing against their shares of the trust, even if the trust assets themselves are not rehypothecable. And the Greyscale ETF launched like 2 months ago. Who knows how much they will have in an year?

I always chuckle at “future-proof cryptography” when I remember that a deck of cards, via a game of deterministic Klondike with pile summation/reduction (mod) at every gn + c steps can theoretically provide 112.8 bits of quantum security entirely by hand- Anyways, this is very cool!!! Random note (click for more details) Random note #2 (click for more details)

Shielded Labs is excited to announce Epoch, a new research and engineering project to future-proof Zcash against emerging threats from quantum computing, increasingly capable AI, sophisticated hackers, and adversarial governments. Cryptocurrency and blockchain technology have entered an uncertain era. Attackers are gaining powerful new capabilities, while state actors around the world are applying growing pressure. Together, these forces are creating new challenges for the cryptographic foundations that cryptocurrency depends on. The promise of private, permissionless money is on shaky ground if the underlying technology cannot withstand the threats of the modern age. We’re launching Epoch to protect Zcash users and the monetary base, and to bring greater certainty to Zcash’s long-term security. Our goal is to ensure that the financial sovereignty Zcash provides can survive and flourish in this new era, and for generations to come. What Is Epoch? Our goal with Epoch is to develop production-ready, high-assurance post-quantum cryptography designed to future-proof Zcash and keep it safe and secure for the long term. To lead the effort, we have assembled a three-person cryptography team: Ulrich Haböck as Chief Cryptographer, and Luke Edwards and Suyash Bagad as Cryptography Engineers. The cryptography we develop through Epoch will be designed to remain secure even as the capabilities of attackers change dramatically, from cryptographically relevant quantum computers to AI-assist

LobbyFi / DeFi coins are a bad example because those were not strong monetary assets and majority of them were expected to go to zero and be grifts. The holders were not long term aligned. Also remember that many of the DeFi experiments involved voting on issuing brand new supply, which is a very different dynamic that allocating a fixed treasury. As the price of Zcash goes up, the cost of a mercenary buying their way into the voting majority becomes absolutely massive. It dwarfes the available treasury. Given the cost to achieve majority, an attacker now has to contend with the possibility that the market sees their corruption and dumps on them, therefore devaluing all the asset they acquired to corrupt the vote. The economics here are not in favor of attackers. Zcash is not a Democracy, is is Nakamoto consensus, straight from Bitcoin. Better than Democracy due to exit choice. The default is “no dev reward”. The default with dev reward, given the dev reward comes from coinholders, is coinholder voted. Anything else is a bonus ZCAP is not actually a part of Zcash consensus and their operations are at the pleasure of real consensus: miners running code and coinholders using the network. So ZCAP actually needs to justify it’s existence to the network.

mohbearded: Our starting idea is a 2-of-3 shielded escrow using FROST (ZIP 312), split between buyer, seller and an arbitrator, with the arbitrator running as an automated co-signer The main issue I see with this is collusion risk between either party and the arbitrator. The arbitrator can be bribed, or the arbitrator can bribe one of the parties. Say the arbitrator signs a share on a transaction that says 50% of the $5 grand locked goes to the buyer (who paid the $5k in the first place, and will soon be getting the $5k-equivalent product). The buyer obviously has an interest to sign their share, creating a full signature. The moment the seller does his thing, the buyer now has $5k-equivalent of goods, and broadcasts the signature. Buyer now has $2.5k ZEC and $5k-equivalent, arbitrator has $2.5k ZEC, seller has nothing. Now, sure, the arbitrator is supposed to be automatic, but the disk (and therefore its keys) are still held by SOMEONE, and that someone can choose to intervene at any time. An arbitraitor am I right-

Frost is updated for ironwood, yes. There is also transaction expiry, which invalidates the transaction after it reaches a certain block height. Transactions can be constructed much earlier on and signed at some later time and then broadcast at some later time, this would all depend on said expiry height. I can’t remember the default offhand, but it comes to about two hours.

Cypherpunk Policy Dinner (October 14): Update and Complimentary Community Tickets Hi everyone, First, apologies for not posting this update sooner. We ran into challenges nailing down the event logistics, which delayed this report. Event and program The Cypherpunk Policy Dinner will take place on Wednesday, October 14, 2026 , at the National Union Building, Washington, DC . This replaces the October 21 date and Joe’s Seafood venue described in the original application. The dinner remains the evening before the DC Privacy Summit , which is now scheduled for October 15 . The announced program features keynote addresses from Josh Swihart, CEO of ZODL , and Landon Zinda, Senior Advisor to the SEC’s Crypto Task Force and Counsel to the Chairman , followed by a fireside chat with both speakers moderated by Julie Stitzel, Chief Policy Officer at DCG . I’m excited about this program. The goal remains to make the case for financial privacy and Zcash directly to policymakers and policy influencers, with meaningful participation from the people building and supporting the technology. Event details and program Grant, sponsorship, and budget Thank you again to ZCG for the $25,000 anchor sponsorship . The dinner website recognizes the Zcash community as the anchor sponsor through the ZCG grant. Our original commitments remain in place: Zcash-focused programming, supporting sponsorships limited to Zcash ecosystem entities, and sponsor recognition in event materials, opening remarks, and pos

Thank you, these are fair challenges. Taking them in order: 1. Custody: where does the money go when you scan the QR code? You’re right that “non-custodial” was too loose. VaihtoFX never takes custody of funds, but the swap and the fiat leg each involve a party that briefly holds them. Precisely: Cash-out: the ZIP-321 request pays MAYAChain’s inbound ZEC vault address, with a second output carrying the swap memo (destination and refund address). That vault is controlled by MAYAChain’s bonded validator set through threshold signatures, not by us. MAYAChain swaps ZEC for USDC through its pools and sends the USDC to the conversion partner’s address, and the partner pays KES to your M-Pesa or Airtel Money number. If the swap fails, MAYAChain refunds to your address. Buy: you pay KES to the partner; the partner sends USDC into MAYAChain; MAYAChain delivers ZEC to your shielded Unified Address. So the trust assumptions are: (a) MAYAChain’s validators and pools for the minutes a swap takes, and (b) the conversion partner for the fiat leg until it pays out or sends USDC. On the NEAR Intents route, used only as a second option for cash-outs, you trust the NEAR Intents deposit and settlement infrastructure instead of MAYAChain. VaihtoFX’s own role is to generate the quote and payment request and to track the order; it never holds keys or funds. We will correct “non-custodial” in the application to “VaihtoFX never takes custody” and spell out these trust assumptions. 2. Who is the partn

Can AI vibecoders contrribute something to this and join ? i have been hooked on hermes for some time with chinese AI models doing all the hard work in coding, can i join this ?

Keeping the old transaction links working is helpful for support conversations—people may return to them days or weeks later. A visible “formerly CipherScan” note would also help users recognize the new name.

mahdi.abdile: 1. Cash out: the user gets a locked quote and a ZIP-321 QR code in VaihtoFX, pays from their own shielded wallet; the swap converts ZEC to USDC for the licensed partner, which pays KES to their M-Pesa or Airtel Money number. 2. Buy: the user pays KES; the partner sends USDC into the swap, which delivers ZEC directly to the user’s shielded Unified Address. 3. Non-custodial: VaihtoFX never holds ZEC and never delivers to transparent-only addresses. 4. Licensed conversion: crypto-to-fiat is done only by a partner licensed by the Central Bank of Kenya (or with an application filed). A Regulatory Enablement & Compliance Workstream classifies the service and prepares any authorization VaihtoFX itself needs. 5. Merchant pilot: Nairobi merchants accept shielded ZEC via CipherPay into their own wallets and can cash out to mobile money. How is it non-custodial if a swap is being done? Someone has to hold some form of crypto here. You said a ZIP-321 QR is displayed after the quote. Where does the money go if I scan and pay? “the swap converts ZEC to USDC” is not a valid answer, since someone somewhere has to make trust-assumptions. mahdi.abdile: Licensed conversion: crypto-to-fiat is done only by a partner licensed by the Central Bank of Kenya (or with an application filed). That is a key regulatory risk. Can you name them and their their license status? mahdi.abdile: Regulatory Enablement & Compliance Workstream: KES 5,800,000 = $44,892 (consultancy KES 5,000,000 + 16% VA