Zcash Weekly — August 30, 2026

ZCSH began trading on NYSE Arca on August 25 — the filing we covered last edition is now real. The fund launched with roughly 387,000 ZEC (~$313M AUM). Jane Street and Virtu are authorized participants; BNY administers. ZEC hit $855 on listing day — an eight-year high — and centralized exchange volume exceeded $1.2B in 24 hours, roughly 5x the prior month's daily average. Bankless noted the irony worth sitting with: "ZCSH holds its ZEC in transparent Coinbase custody wallets, so the ETF gives investors price exposure without touching the shielded tech that makes Zcash a privacy asset in the first place." More on this in Privacy Corner below. Grayscale · Bankless

Both votes are now live — the coinholder poll opened August 25 and the ZCAP poll followed on August 27, both running through September 14. What made this week notable isn't the mechanics (covered last edition) but the debate that erupted around Question 3: Sprout deprecation.

Cypherpunk published their full NU7 recommendations: preserve halvings, begin fee recycling, don't deprecate Sprout yet, and leave block times at 75s. Sean Bowe publicly disagreed on Sprout, arguing it should be disabled immediately at NU7 — calling it technical debt, an unnecessary security risk, and inconsistent with Ironwood's circulating supply definition since Sprout isn't sealed like Orchard. He also noted that Sprout's remaining activity is almost entirely withdrawals, which is exactly what you'd expect before a shutdown. Zooko weighed in too. This is the most substantive public protocol debate Zcash has had in years, and it's playing out in the open while votes are being cast privately. Cypherpunk recommendations · ebfull on Sprout · ZCAP poll announcement