What’s up fam? 
Zcash saw a “god candle” this week, and with it, a flurry of activity across the socials, in real life in Singapore around Token2049 and Network State conferences, and in my DMs. I’m currently on a flight back to the US, blurry-eyed, exhausted, …and smiling from ear to ear. The token price and market cap have seen rises in the past, but this time, it really is different. We reached a tipping point.
As I write this, I just received another DM asking, “Why now?” I’ve been asked that question a dozen times this week. The truth is that “I can’t say for sure.” Perhaps it’s as simple as “Zcash’s time has come.” But maybe it’s because the elements that spark and fuel the spread of a movement were finally in place.
Malcom Gladwell published The Tipping Point 25 years ago. Much has changed since then, but I’ve been thinking about it through a similar lens. Gladwell’s framework includes three factors for why things “suddenly” take fire. In our case, I will use four: fundamentals (the fuel), zeitgeist (the environment), key opinion leaders (the spark), and memes (the spread).
Fundamentals
If a movement is going to take off and sustain itself, it must have fuel that won’t burn out quickly. Zcash has it in spades.
Simply, Zcash is the most idealogically and technologically sound form of private money.
Some of the Zcash fundamentals have been in place for years, but many have only recently emerged in the last 12-18 months.
At its core is the uncompromising Zcash ethos that values self-sovereignty and agency, which is only available to us with privacy, as sacrosanct. Zcash is a battle-tested protocol that uses the unbeatable privacy guarantees of zero-knowledge cryptography, and is supported by a battle-hardened community that has galvanized and matured through many difficult years. These are not replaceable or replicable.
But just recently, Zcash has become usable and broadly accessible with high utility thanks to Zashi and its integration with a hardware wallet, Keystone, for cold storage, NEAR Intents for swapping and paying with ZEC (also Maya is live and soon integrated), and Flexa for payments with legacy point-of-sale systems. And thanks to @ebfull, a viable near-term path for scaling to billions with Tachyon.
Many have written about Zcash fundamentals in the weeks leading up to this one, and so there is no need for me to continue to drone on myself. Instead, please read “Why Zcash Now” by Arjun, “My Zcash investment thesis” by Frank, and “The case for a small allocation to ZEC” by Sacha
Zeitgeist
The zeitgeist provides the perfect environmental conditions.
Sadly, a cloud hangs over the world. It is splintering. Protests, crackdowns, and violence are raging in Western nations. The gaps between political groups are widening, as are income gaps and fiat debasement that will lead to greater division if not reversed. We increasingly vilify others, using our freedom of speech to cut down rather than build up.
This has opened the doors of oppression, enabled by surveillance. Cameras are on every street and phone, agencies scour public posts for undesirable speech and trends, governments are issuing digital IDs to destroy anonymity, and now the EU wants to read every message you send.
Many are now waking up and realizing that we need tools to protect our liberties and the security of our loved ones and ourselves. As decentralized private money, Zcash provides shelter from this storm.
KOLs
A number of well-respected and connected people have been paying attention to the fundamentals and zeitgeist. Some have a large social media following and have begun to speak out publicly. Others shy away from public engagement but are influential in influential circles. These leaders are the spark that ignited the fire, which is now spreading with the right fuel mix and environment.
Mert began regularly posting about Zcash some months ago. Naval has been posting and engaging. Balaji has always been an advocate and is increasing his engagement.
KOLs and connectors in adjacent communities, including Tom Howard, Akshay, Chronear, Juan, and Vlad, have been standing up as vocal supporters. Crypto influencers like Gainzy, Path, Cobie, and others have been buzzing. The KOLs are talking.
Memes
Memes spread the fire, and they have been everywhere. Historically, Zcash memes like 1 zec = 7 btc, ZODL, and Privacy is Normal took off and live on, and more recently, Unstoppable Private Money. This week, encrypted bitcoin, $1k ZEC, and $50k ZEC emerged and took root.
genzcash is new to the scene this year and has been everywhere, quite literally, with its own brand of fresh and sometimes quirky video clips as the “memetic warfare division” of Zcash.
Zcash lore is being shared from Snowden’s engagement, to Zooko‘s interactions with Hal (watch Zooko’s speech in the Network State video linked near the bottom) and Satoshi. As an OG, the Zcash lore is simply unmatched.
The ZEC chart itself is a meme, as ZEC recently broke above long-standing trends against both fiat and BTC.
Even the Zcash tech is memetic. People are sharing memos received in Zashi, talking of Tachyon scaling to billions, and the meteoric rise of the Zcash shielded pool.
As with its project fundamentals, the Zcash project has a wealth of memetic riches to build upon. And, if you are following crypto on X, your timeline has likely been full of them in recent weeks.
Friends, while the reasons behind the firestorm of Zcash engagement and adoption are impossible to pinpoint exactly, what is clear is that we hit a tipping point.
fuel + environment + spark + spread = tipping point
Zcash is now in a new era. 
Here’s the fuel we added this week:
Zashi
Over $9.5 million in ZEC (at $163/ZEC) has been swapped or paid through Zashi since the launch of swaps at the end of August, averaging 1,509 ZEC per day. Just under $1M was swapped to ZEC this week.
What we did:
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Swap to ZEC finished and released to production!
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Follow-up bug fixes released to production, as well, on both platforms.
What’s up next:
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Implement ephemeral, transparent addresses for all NEAR-intent-supported functionalities.
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Implement Marking a Transaction as Trusted to allow users to lower the required confirmations to make funds spendable.
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Focus on debugging user issues and bug fixing.
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Continue reviewing & finalizing open designs, and progressing with new ones - Transparent Address Rotation, support for Ledger Hardware Wallet, Duress/Decoy Wallet feature, Multi-Account Support, Reset Zashi revamp & home buttons personalization.
iOS Analytics
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Unique Installs: 12.1k
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Total Downloads: 14.4k
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AppStore Rating: 4.9*
Android Analytics
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Total Install Base: 4.83k
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Total Installs (incl. Open Beta): 24.2k
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PlayStore Rating: 4.347*
Zcash Core
What we did:
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Finished ZIP 48 transparent multisig support in the Rust crates.
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ZIP 48 transparent multisig support in zcash-devtool
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Ran the Key Holder Organization ceremony for NU 6.1 mainnet, set NU 6.1 mainnet consensus rules, released zcashd 6.10.0 & supporting Rust crates.
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Completed backend and mobile SDK FFI changes with the Zashi features and bugfixes released this week.
What’s up next:
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Rotating ephemeral transparent addresses for one-time use cases (swaps, Coinbase onramp).
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Mark received transactions as trusted to reduce the number of confirmations required before spending.
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Draft ZIP for key rotation (ZSA issuance keys & lockbox FROST multisig disbursement keys) in NU7.
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Review QEDit ZSA PR(s) to the Orchard crate.
Other:
Str4d and I spent the week in Singapore in various meetings around Token 2049 and the Network State in support of Zcash, Zashi, Tachyon, and Cross Link with the Shielded Labs team.
Zooko and I spoke at the Network State Conference. The recording is here.
A number of us Zcashers and friends spent a day at the Network School for a Zcash event organized by genzcash and a roundtable conversation with Balaji.
That’s all for this week!
Lighting it up,
Onward.