Zcash founder joins Shielded Labs, pushes for hybrid PoS upgrade

The founder of privacy coin Zcash, Zooko Wilcox, is looking to accelerate the protocol’s upgrade to a hybrid proof-of-stake system after joining Shielded Labs.

In a blog post on Aug. 10, Zooko Wilcox, Zcash founder and now new head of product at Shielded Labs, said that after eight years of using proof-of-work mining, the privacy currency needs to be upgraded to a hybrid proof-of-stake system.

He noted that PoW consensus and the creation of new ZEC coins had put downward pressure on its price, “but this is expected to ease as the rate of new coin creation reduces.”

Two main upcoming improvements mentioned were implementing the Zcash Sustainability Fund and upgrading to “Crosslink,” a hybrid proof-of-work and proof-of-stake protocol.

“We want to deploy this as fast as possible while maintaining Zcash’s track record of excellent safety,” he said.

Benefits from the upgrade include enabling staking for ZEC holders, providing finality that protects users against rollback attacks, reducing transaction times, and allowing safer two-way bridges to other networks.

However, Wilcox did not elaborate on technical specifics or provide a timeline for the upgrade. The Electric Coin Company (ECC), the firm behind Zcash development, first mentioned PoS interoperability back in 2021.

Meanwhile, in a post on X on Aug. 8, the ECC announced Zooko’s move to Shielded Labs, an independent Switzerland-based organization dedicated to supporting Zcash.

“This news is a win for the Zcash community, and we look forward to collaborating with Shielded Labs on Zcash hybrid PoW/PoS.”

Shielded Labs also announced that it had received generous donations from Zcash holders and supporters, including Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and Vitalik Buterin.

The funds will help the organization expand its initiatives, and partner with ECC to prioritize the development and implementation of Crosslink, it added.

Zcash was launched in 2016 as a privacy-focused payment currency with similarities to Bitcoin (BTC) from which it was forked.

Zooko Wilcox stepped down as the CEO of ECC in December with Josh Swihart promoted to replace him as CEO.

The ZEC price has failed to gain momentum since being delisted by several large centralized crypto exchanges in 2023 following regulatory pressure.

ZEC was trading at a little over $41 at the time of writing, having gained 40% over the past week.

However, the privacy coin has lost 98% since its 2016 all-time high of $3,191, according to CoinGecko.