Zooko Wilcox, founder of privacy coin Zcash, has joined Shielded Labs and is looking to accelerate the protocol’s upgrade to a hybrid proof-of-stake system.
In an August 10 blog post, Zooko Wilcox, founder of Zcash and now head of new product at Shielded Labs, said that after eight years of using proof-of-work mining, the privacy currency needs to upgrade to a hybrid proof-of-stake system.
He noted that the PoW consensus and the creation of new ZEC coins have put downward pressure on the price, but “this pressure is expected to ease as the rate of new coin creation slows.”
The two major planned improvements mentioned were the implementation of a Zcash sustainability fund and the upgrade to “Crosslink,” a hybrid proof-of-work and proof-of-stake protocol.
“We want to deploy Zcash as quickly as possible while maintaining its excellent security record,” he said.
Benefits of the upgrade include: supporting staking for ZEC holders, providing finality to protect users from rollback attacks, reducing transaction times, and allowing for secure two-way bridges with other networks.
However, Wilcox did not go into technical details or provide a timeline for the upgrade. The Electric Coin Company (ECC), the company behind Zcash’s development, first mentioned PoS interoperability in 2021.
Meanwhile, in a post on X on August 8, ECC announced that Zooko is moving to Shielded Labs, an independent Swiss-based organization that supports Zcash.
“This news is a win for the Zcash community, and we look forward to working with Shielded Labs on a Zcash hybrid PoW/PoS.”
Shielded Labs also announced that it has received generous donations from Zcash holders and supporters, including Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, and Vitalik Buterin.
The funding will help the organization scale its initiatives and work with ECC to prioritize the development and implementation of Crosslink, he added.
relevant: Zcash Founder Zooko Wilcox Steps Down from Electric Coin, Appoints New CEO
Zcash was launched in 2016 as a privacy-focused payments currency, similar to the forked Bitcoin (BTC).
Juko Wilcox stepped down as ECC CEO in December, and Josh Swart was promoted to succeed him.
The ZEC price has not trended since it was delisted from several large centralized cryptocurrency exchanges in 2023 due to regulatory pressure.
At the time of writing, ZEC was trading at just over $41, up 40% over the past week.
However, according to CoinGecko, the privacy coin has fallen 98% since its all-time high of $3,191 in 2016.
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