How can we get Defi use shielded Zcash?
2 Likes
The privacy properties of Zcash are on the Zcash chain. When you mint ZEC on Ethereum in reality they get locked on the Zcash chain, and are represented on Ethereum as regular ERC-20 tokens which donât have privacy by default (but privacy protocols on Ethereum can be used to add some privacy back, although there doesnât exist any widely used yet).
But you can still maintain your privacy because you can deposit shielded ZEC to RenVM, use the renZEC on a fresh Ethereum address, use within DeFi, and then redeem ZEC from RenVM, and bring it back to a shielded address.
6 Likes
Whatâs the status of WZEC/renZEC curve pool? I think this will be important before ZEC can be widely used as collateral in defi.
2 Likes
Itâs coming, weâre also pushing for integrations on lending platforms!
5 Likes
Thanks for your active contributions! I agree that lending platforms would be the best first use case for ZEC on Defi. I understand that both RenZEC and WZEC receives a lot of votes in the Maker green-light poll but it looks like it wonât be on-boarded as DAI collateral anytime soon. Is there any way for Zcashers to help push the Maker team?
1 Like
The MakerDAO domain teams prioritize based on a host of factors, one of the major ones being liquidity I believe. So while both renZEC and wZEC are greenlighted on MakerDAO, both donât have the enormous amounts of liquidity some stablecoins have for instance. So the best way to put ZEC on their radar is to increase the liquidity and volume (and other integrations). We have some good integrations coming up for ZEC soon so that will help in that regard.
3 Likes
So, any good news on this front? I think it has been quite for ZEC on Ethereum lately. 
The liquidity of ZEC on Ethereum is growing! Of course it would be faster if there were more integrations in the DeFi ecosystem, so we are pushing for this on many fronts. Hereâs the latest supply of renZEC:
Trading wise, there is a pretty deep pool on Uniswap now, it has over $1m of liquidity, which means reasonable-sized trades can be executed without too much slippage, which is great. Volume isnât huge yet but we expect that to grow with more liquidity and more integrations: Uniswap Info
4 Likes
We now support wrapping ZEC to Binance Smart Chain. While BSC is perhaps not the most decentralized platform, if you use the regular Binance exchange, you should for the most part be fine with Binance Smart Chain as well.
So this means that you can natively send ZEC to a gateway provided by RenVM, and youâll get to mint renZEC on BSC, which can be used in whatever trading or lending protocol that exists there. And the gas fees are much less there than on Ethereum.
Weâll create a liquidity pool on Pancake Swap (their version of Uniswap), and try getting renZEC integrated there where ever we can. Weâll also of course continue working on integrations on the Ethereum side.
7 Likes
I have zcash in my zcash wallet and a MetaMask wallet. How do I convert zec to renzec and get it into my MetaMask wallet?
That can be done here: https://bridge.renproject.io/
Simply select Zcash in the dropdown menu, and generate your personal ZEC gateway address, which you send ZEC to. After getting confirmed, you mint renZEC by signing an Ethereum transaction! (Keep in mind that Ethereum is currently clogged, so itâs very expensive to do transactions there if you want your transactions to get picked up by miners quickly)
1 Like
Some cool news today! renZEC got added to Unit Protocol, which is a stablecoin protocol which lets you collateralize your assets to borrow USD, just like Maker protocol.
So you can permissionlessly borrow USD against your ZEC, which you can use to yield farm or exchange into fiat:
Whatâs also very cool is that if you are a renZEC liquidity provider on Uniswap (in the renZEC-ETH pool), or if you want to be, you can use the liquidity provider tokens representing your share in the Uniswap pool, as collateral as well in Unit Protocol!
So you could be providing liquidity on Uniswap and earn trading fees, and at the same time collateralize that position to borrow USD which you then can use to additionally farm within the DeFi ecosystem. Or you can borrow USD and shift that into ZEC/ETH in whatever strategy you prefer, to hedge against the price shifts that can occur between ZEC and ETH while you are a liquidity provider (as you need to hold both assets to be a provider, and you will experience impermanent loss when the relative price between those assets shifts).
3 Likes
I did this as a test with 1 coin. But then it said the fee was ~60. So this clearly doesnât make sense for 1 coin. I canceled the transaction and then I canât find my coin. Is it still in Ren? Is the fee correct? Does it stay the same? A simulator on your side would help for quick calculations
Yupp that sounds like a typical Ethereum contract interaction these days (itâs not a fee that goes to RenVM in any way, it goes to the Ethereum miners)
You can see the estimated fees when you generate your deposit address: 
The Ethereum fee is not dependent on the ZEC amount you send, it is only dependent on how congested Ethereum is.
We canât reverse those transactions that have gone to a gateway, you need to mint it and then release if you want it back. So it will be waiting for you until you decide to mint it, so you could wait until Ethereum congestion goes down and then send it. MetaMask also allows you to manually set the gas price on your transactions, so you could set the gas price low and then wait for as long as it takes until a miner picks it up.
1 Like