Unified address

Technology
1

Does the unified address also have the ability to be tracked like the transparent address? In the future will there only be a unified address or will we be stuck with a transparent address forever?

2

Unified addresses are an encoding mechanism for bundling, currently, up to 3 address types: transparent sapling and orchard. So if it contains a transparent component, then that part can potentially be tracked. The easy way to deal with that is to employ single use addresses.

3 Likes
3

You can use zcashd to help find receivers of any given UA. I made a helper script for just this case!

6 Likes
4

Might be a stupid question but I’ve been out of sync with this: do any exchanges currently support withdrawals to a unified address or do they still only support withdrawals to transparent t-addresses only?

2 Likes
5

good question.

6

not dat i know.

cause it has been not yet easy to implement. i think some grant recently did sth in that direction to make it simpler. hopefully we can get exchanges now moving in that direction.

this: Zcash Parsers : Go and Kotlin address parsers

1 Like
7

Unified Address is actually a misnomer, since they are not actual addresses. As someone mentioned in the past, a unified address is more like a business card, which contains a phone number, a mobile number and/or an email address. It’s up to the holder of the bussiness card to chosse his prefered way oif communication.
So, even if exchanges starts using Unified Addresses, they could still chose to use the transparent part of it.

5 Likes
8

No, and I bet a DEX will support UA’s before any CEX.

1 Like
9

Gemini supports sending directly to your Z-address

2 Likes
10

I haven’t explored the U address yet, can I define what information I allow to be transparent? How do I access Zcash in test mode, without using real coins?

11

Yes, depending on the wallet. Using zcashd you can build UA that only accepts shielded addresses, see here:

Raspi4Guide

Using ywallet you choose which type of UA to display:

Screenshot_2024-06-19_06-23-16

Zingo or Zashi, for example, use a Full UA which includes a T address which is good for compatibility but you currently dont have the option to display Orchard or Sapling only receivers without using another tool

See here:
List Receivers
Visualizing UA’s
Transaction Privacy

Here is one way using Zingo cli (h/t @james_katz )

Regtest

3 Likes