Zcash glossary
This glossary explains 48 Zcash terms in plain English, from shielded and transparent addresses to Ironwood, turnstiles, viewing keys and ZIP-317 fees. It is updated for the 2026 changes, including the Orchard flaw, the Ironwood pool, Zodl and NU7.
Zcash has its own vocabulary, and 2026 added more: Ironwood, turnstiles, ZODL, Zallet and NU7. Below are the terms you are most likely to meet in wallets, news and this guide, in alphabetical order. For the big picture start with what is Zcash?
Terms A to Z
- Anonymity set
- The group of possible senders or notes a transaction could have come from. In a Zcash shielded pool it is, roughly, all notes in that pool.
- Birthday height
- The block height when a wallet was created. Entering it with your seed phrase lets a restore skip older blocks and sync faster.
- Block reward
- New ZEC created in each block (1.5625 ZEC per 75-second block from November 2024 until NU7, which scales it down for 25-second blocks), split 80% to miners, 8% to Zcash Community Grants and 12% to a coinholder-controlled fund.
- Blossom
- The December 2019 network upgrade that cut the target block time from 150 to 75 seconds.
- Canopy
- The November 2020 upgrade that brought the first halving, ended the Founders' Reward and started the 2020 to 2024 Dev Fund.
- Coinholder-controlled fund
- The fund created by NU6.1 on 24 November 2025 that receives 12% of block rewards, with spending decided by ZEC holder votes (ZIP 1016).
- Compact block
- A slimmed-down block that a light-wallet server sends to wallets so they can detect their own shielded payments without downloading full blocks.
- Deshielding
- Moving ZEC from a shielded address to a transparent one. The amount and receiving address become public.
- Diversified address
- One of many different-looking shielded addresses generated from the same key. Outsiders cannot tell they belong to the same wallet.
- Equihash
- The memory-hard proof-of-work algorithm used to mine Zcash. Hashrate is measured in solutions per second (Sol/s).
- F4Jumble
- An encoding step used in unified addresses that scrambles the data so a small change breaks the whole address.
- Founders' Reward
- The 20% of block rewards paid during Zcash's first four years (2016 to 2020) to founders, investors, employees and the Zcash Foundation.
- Full viewing key
- A key that reveals a shielded account's incoming and outgoing transactions without allowing spending. Cannot be revoked once shared.
- Halo 2
- A zero-knowledge proof system without a trusted setup, used by the Orchard pool introduced in 2022.
- Halving
- The roughly four-yearly cut of the block subsidy by half. Zcash halvings took place in November 2020 and November 2024; the next is expected around late November 2028.
- Incoming viewing key
- A key that reveals only payments received by a shielded account, not payments sent.
- Ironwood
- Zcash's current shielded pool, launched by NU6.3 on 28 July 2026 to replace Orchard after a circuit flaw was found.
- Light wallet
- A wallet that downloads compact blocks from a server and scans them on your device instead of running a full node.
- lightwalletd
- The server software that supplies compact blocks to light wallets. Zaino is its Rust successor.
- Memo
- An encrypted text field attached to a shielded payment, readable only by the recipient and viewing-key holders.
- Network upgrade (NU)
- A coordinated change to Zcash's consensus rules that all nodes adopt at a set block height, such as NU5, NU6.3 or NU7.
- Note
- The record of a shielded amount owned by an address, similar to an encrypted coin.
- NU5
- The May 2022 upgrade that introduced the Orchard pool, Halo 2 and unified addresses.
- NU6.3
- The 28 July 2026 upgrade, at block 3,428,143, that launched the Ironwood pool and made Orchard withdraw-only.
- NU7
- The next planned upgrade, set for block 3,543,405 around 5 November 2026: 25-second blocks, v4 transactions disabled and the Network Sustainability Mechanism.
- Nullifier
- A unique value published when a shielded note is spent, which prevents double spending without revealing which note it was.
- Orchard
- The shielded pool launched in May 2022. After a flaw found in May 2026 it became withdraw-only, with funds moving to Ironwood.
- Sapling
- The shielded pool launched in October 2018 with zs1 addresses. Still supported in 2026.
- Seed phrase
- The 24 words (in most Zcash wallets) that back up your wallet. Anyone with them controls your funds.
- Shielded
- Describes ZEC or transactions inside an encrypted pool, where sender, receiver and amount are hidden.
- Shielding
- Moving ZEC from a transparent address into a shielded pool.
- Sprout
- The original 2016 shielded pool with zc addresses. Legacy; NU7 is reported to make remaining Sprout funds unspendable.
- TEX address
- A transparent address in a special format (tex1, ZIP 320) that must be paid from transparent funds. Used by some exchanges.
- Transparent address
- A public Zcash address starting with t1 or t3. Works like a Bitcoin address, with no privacy.
- Trusted setup
- A ceremony to generate public parameters for some proof systems. Sprout and Sapling used one; Halo 2 does not need one.
- Turnstile
- A public checkpoint on funds leaving a shielded pool. It ensures no more leaves than went in, which proves no hidden coins were created.
- Unified address
- A single address starting with u1 (ZIP 316) that bundles shielded and optional transparent receivers.
- Viewing key
- A key that gives read-only access to a shielded account's activity. Comes in full and incoming types.
- Zaino
- A Rust indexer that serves light wallets from a Zebra node, succeeding lightwalletd.
- Zallet
- The wallet built to replace the zcashd wallet, used with a Zebra node. In beta in October 2026.
- Zatoshi
- The smallest unit of ZEC: 1 ZEC = 100,000,000 zatoshi.
- Zebra
- Full-node software for Zcash maintained by the Zcash Foundation, the main node after zcashd's retirement.
- zcashd
- The original Zcash node and wallet software. It reached end of life on 18 July 2026.
- ZIP
- Zcash Improvement Proposal: a document that specifies a change or standard, for example ZIP 316 (unified addresses) or ZIP 317 (fees).
- ZIP-317
- The fee rule wallets follow: 5,000 zatoshi per logical action, minimum two actions, so a simple payment costs 0.0001 ZEC.
- zk-SNARK
- A zero-knowledge proof that is short and quick to verify. Zcash uses zk-SNARKs to prove shielded transactions are valid without revealing details.
- Zcash Community Grants
- The grants programme that receives 8% of block rewards to fund independent Zcash development.
- ZODL
- Zcash Open Development Lab, the company formed by the former Electric Coin Company team in 2026. It builds the Zodl wallet (formerly Zashi).
Learn more
- Shielded vs transparent ZEC
- Unified addresses explained
- What is Ironwood?
- Zcash fees (ZIP-317)
- Zcash history timeline
Frequently asked questions
What does shielded mean in Zcash?
Shielded ZEC sits in an encrypted pool where the sender, receiver and amount of transactions are hidden. Transparent ZEC is public, like Bitcoin.
What is a zatoshi?
The smallest unit of ZEC. One ZEC equals 100,000,000 zatoshi.
What is the difference between Orchard and Ironwood?
Orchard was the main shielded pool from 2022. After a flaw was found in 2026 it became withdraw-only, and Ironwood, launched on 28 July 2026, replaced it.