Happy Birthday, Zcash! It’s been 10 years since “the most uneventful launch ever.” Big thanks to the scientists, Satoshi, the Zcash builders, and the holders who’ve made it possible. Watch the original livestream and see how far we’ve come:

Big milestone for Shielded Labs: the activation height for NU7 is being set today! The upgrade includes our first major mainnet deployment: the Network Sustainability Mechanism (NSM). Like Bitcoin, Zcash faces a long-term challenge: how to sustain network security as block rewards decline. The NSM helps address that while preserving the 21 million coin cap. ZIP-235 removes 60% of transaction fees from circulation, allowing that ZEC to be reissued as future block rewards. ZIP-237 starts that recycling around February 2031. At current fee levels, that’s only about 210 ZEC per year. This is a modest first step, but we’re optimistic about how new use cases for the NSM could evolve over time and contribute to Zcash’s long-term security.

Introducing Epoch, Shielded Labs’ new research and engineering project focused on hardening Zcash from future threats: AI-powered hackers Quantum Computing risk Adversarial governments We plan to achieve this through formal verification of critical code and by deploying “post-everything” cryptography. Epoch will ensure Zcash remains designed for the threats we face today and for whatever comes next. ⤵️