Building Momentum. ECC Update

Ecosystem Updates
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Leonardo da Vinci flywheel
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Zcash is accelerating. Some are in shock. But not all of us. Many have been preparing. Many have been diligently working on the flywheel of financial freedom for some time. (1, 2, 3)

We are far from done.

Zcash will evolve until it is connected to everything, scaled to billions, and the shielded pool is full.

To build on our momentum, we must keep building. We must ship, what matters, faster. And we must do it collectively, and using the momentum we have, to bring in more builders.

Project Tachyon, which will deliver scale, is underway and looking for more contributors.

We need to retire our legacy consensus software in 2026 and fully transition to zebrad, along with Zallet (command-line wallet) and Zaino, to accelerate core development and improve security.

We need to build more DEX options and bridges for resiliency and global access.

We need to build more ways to store and spend ZEC with richer tooling, available to everyone. I outlined some of those things at a Z|ECC Summit earlier this year with a vision for Zashi Vault. Zashi itself needs to improve. We will refine the UX to make acquiring, storing, and using shielded ZEC even easier.

ECC is working on our hiring plan to bring on additional core developers, Zashi engineers and support, a security director, and more. Reach out if you are ready to be part of this.

And we need even more.

We need more from exchanges to invest in support for shielded addresses. We need more hardware wallet options for increased security.

And we need the Zcashers to keep pressing hard across social channels and in person to raise awareness, onboard and welcome new Zcashers, and provide education.

As we accomplish these things, the flywheel will crank even faster.

“No matter how dramatic the end result, good-to-great transformations never happen in one fell swoop. In building a great company or social sector enterprise, there is no single defining action, no grand program, no one killer innovation, no solitary lucky break, no miracle moment. Rather, the process resembles relentlessly pushing a giant, heavy flywheel, turn upon turn, building momentum until a point of breakthrough, and beyond.” - Jim Collins. Good to Great.

We set ECC’s flywheel in motion at Zeboot in January of 2024. That week, we determined to focus on user adoption by shipping Zashi and integrating with bridges and DEXs, and to evolve Zcash funding and governance structures. You can see my slides here.

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In July of that year, we met again with others in the community for the first Z|ECC Summit and discussed ECC’s flywheel and the path we would take to help accelerate Zcash adoption. We confronted the brutal facts, narrowed our focus, and instilled discipline in our efforts.

And that was just ECC. Many across the Zcash ecosystem focused, collaborated, and executed at levels never before seen. Hardened and hardcore Zcashers, determined to see Zcash rise like the phoenix. And here we are.

To build unstoppable private money, we must sustain this energy, maintain a strong focus, and leverage our collective ability to accelerate it further.

We built this together, and together, we are building unstoppable momentum.

Here’s what we contributed this week:

Zashi

What we did:

  • Zashi 2.4.4 and 2.4.5 were released to production with bug fixes and auto-updating of swap/payment statuses. :rocket:

  • Reviewed Zashi Knowledge Base designs and error handling improvements.

  • Began interviewing for Zashi Support/Community Manager.

What’s up next:

  • Working with the Core Team on implementation of Ephemeral Transparent Addresses for all NEAR Intents supported functionalities - #1 development priority.

  • Review finalized designs for Transparent Address Rotation, Ledger Hardware Wallet support, and Multi-Account support.

  • Finalize open designs - Reset Zashi revamp + Keystone fixes, and Duress/Decoy Wallet feature.

iOS Analytics

  • Unique Installs: 18.9k (1.4k increase)
    ​​​​​​​​​Total Downloads: 22k (1.6k increase)
    ​​​​​​​​​AppStore Rating: 4.9* (unchanged)

Android Analytics

  • Total Install Base: 7.83k (0.6k increase)
    ​​​​​​​​​Total Installs (incl. Open Beta): 28.5k (1.2k increase)
    ​​​​​​​​​PlayStore Rating: 4.25* (-0.064)

Swap Analytics

  • Swap volume (to date): 253k ZEC

  • Avg volume per day (to date): 6k ZEC

Zcash Core

What we did:

What’s up next:

  • Support for P2SH multisig (in final review: librustzcash#1962).

  • Qedit Orchard PR Review.

  • Finish account deletion for zcash_client_sqlite (draft PR: librustzcash#2012).

  • Finish support for marking received transactions as trusted to reduce the number of confirmations required before spending (ready for review: librustzcash#1958).

  • Finish draft ZIP for key rotation (ZSA issuance keys and lockbox FROST multisig disbursement keys) in NU7.

  • Make a start on the NU7 changes to the protocol spec.

  • Work on a DSL to make it easier to express and maintain tests.

Other:

Began 2026 budgeting and projections.

We are finalizing and will publish a Q4 ECC roadmap soon.

That’s all for this week!

Building,

Onward.

20 Likes
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Congratulations on the recent market confirmation that your strategy is working!

Amazing to see these ZEC integrations snowball, can’t wait to see what’s next :rocket:

6 Likes
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Dude. You and your team know exactly what you’re doing. What a ruckus you guys have made this year. Holy. Shit.

6 Likes
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Onward! Go, go, go!

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so many things coming :clap: little details which can improve the privacy and user experience :+1:

4 Likes
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impossible to say it better.

let’s keep building

4 Likes
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They say Greatness takes time and slow and steady wins the race :index_pointing_at_the_viewer:

,Thank you

4 Likes
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See above update @rotateaddr

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Thank you for the special mention. I appreciate it @Shawn. Glad to see that the community is listened and heard. With this, I really do like the direction ZCash ecosystem is taking as a whole.