Wallet Questions/Updates

General
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Hi everyone,

I had some questions about the current state of the wallet ecosystem.

Please help me with any missing/incorrect information, but my current understanding is that for the wallet options that support orchard/UA/autoshielding, we have:

Zecwallet Lite: mobile/desktop, light node

Ywallet: mobile/desktop, light node, originally meant for a zcash fork

Zingo: mobile, light node

Nighthawk: mobile, light node

Unstoppable: mobile, light node

Zecwallet full node: desktop, full node

Zcashd: ECC official client, linux only, CLI only, full node

Zebra: ZFND official client, linux only, CLI only, full node

Is that correct, or am I missing anything? Do any of these wallets not support all the new important features of UA and autoshielding with the orchard pool?

I appreciate the help, thanks!

Also, for wallets that support UA and autoshielding, what happens if a sapling balance is sent to a UA address? Does it stay as sapling or is there a turnstile that automatically converts it to orchard?

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Check out ZecHub’s wallet section.

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First, sapling balance sent to a a Unified Address typically implies that is sent to an orchard address. In that case it will have crossed into the orchard shielded pool simply via transacting z2u and will be contained in an orchard address.
Unified addresses are an address management system that currently allow for up to three different Zcash addresses to be contained or represented by one big address. This address, like an orchard addy, also has a ‘u’ prefix so it can be confusing sometimes though typically like said, and with the way that wallets handle funds nowadays, it almost always means orchard.
Zecwallet light and Zecwallet FN may still enforce auto shielding if the option is selected but I haven’t handled transparent funds through that wallet in a long time so I can’t say exactly 100% for sure. Other wallets however will typically require your consent before shielding funds due to the often surprising nature of automatically doing it.
Ok the list! Pretty much spot on. The term light node around here traditionally would instead be light wallet. Zebra is a full node implementation but does not have an internal wallet.
UA support- zcashd and Ywallet have complete functionality w/ address flexability. Zingo privides 1 Full UA of all 3 receiver, a sapling and taddy. Zecwallet light and presumably Zecwallet full node (though not sure) provide 1 orchard, a sapling, taddy. Unstoppable provides a sapling addy. These wallets support the current tx formats (v6 coming soon!). Nighthawk should be very soon as well.

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This is an unfortunate behavior of most shielded wallets. If the recipient’s UA has a sapling receiver, it is preferable to make a z2z transaction that preserves your privacy.

I think people should know the behavior of their wallets, though it may not matter to most.

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I completely agree. The default behavior should be privacy preserving and this is especially prudent given (optional) privacy is Zcash’s primary point of differentiation from other coins.

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Okay, thanks for all the info! Good to know Nighthawk and Unstoppable don’t support Orchard yet.

I feel like Wallets - Zcash should be updated to include Zingo.

Is Zecwallet Lite going to use Ywallet’s sync features? It’s very slow to sync.

Any ideas why there’s only 70k coins in the orchard pool if we now have GUI wallets that support orchard? We have 1.2m in sapling still, and about 15m as transparent.

Does this mean that about 15m are on exchanges?

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Funds on exchanges, transparent only hosted wallets and hardware wallets would likely account for the majority of transparent funds though where they are actually dispersed in the world Idk.
The current amount of coins in orchard at 70K is actually pretty decent I’d say. Some wallets like unstoppable (which does support orchard format so it can send to and receive from though does not support having an orchard address in the wallet) is still sapling only.
Zecwallet light uses blaze sync algorithm what its called and is an accelerated sync algorithm compared to the normal but Ywallet uses warp sync which is a performance improvement on that. The next phase in wallet syncing will be DAGsync which will be a part of the ecc mobile sdk libraries, late may I think is the rough target date I think I read.
The wallet list on the website could probably stand to be polished a little bit idk.

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Will DAGsync be available for desktop wallets too, or only the mobile versions? Excited to see the improvements in sync time!

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DAGsync will be native to the zcashd internal wallet so it and any desktop wallet that makes use of it such as Zecwallet full node will have it’s functionality. Like you point out some light wallets exist as desktops and mobile, some are in the works and so it’s hard to say which wallets will and won’t end up using it.

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15 million is not correct, the total circulation of ZEC is about 13.7m right now. Messari appears to be the only blockchain metrics site with accurate Zcash numbers. Your sapling (1.2m) and orchard (70k) numbers are roughly correct.

Notice that their Outstanding Supply count is what I am referring to. I’m not sure how the count they have labeled as circulating supply is calculated.

Zcash (ZEC) Live Stats | Market cap, Supply, Volume | Messari

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image1839×705 56 KB

Info There exists different ways to measure Supply for cryptoassets. Reported Supply refers to the circulating supply commonly reported in the industry. Liquid Supply refers to the supply that exist on-chain, and which is not known to be encumbered by any contracts (programmatic or legal). Outstanding Supply refers to the entirery of the supply that exists on-chain. All together, these metrics allow to have a precise picture of the Supply for an asset

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