Zcash to ship quantum-recoverable wallets within a month — full post-quantum upgrade targeted by 2027!

Josh Swihart, CEO of Zcash Open Development Lab, told a Consensus Miami audience Thursday that quantum-recoverable wallets will ship within a month, with full post-quantum status targeted within 12 to 18 months. A parallel scaling track aims to bring Zcash to Visa- and Mastercard-level throughput on a similar timeline.

The announcements land against a 110% ZEC rally over the past 30 days, fueled by Multicoin Capital's disclosed investment and a renewed investor appetite for privacy-focused crypto. Swihart's central argument: Bitcoin functions well as an ETF wrapper and store of value, but as a peer-to-peer private payment system it is "fundamentally broken" — visible balances on a transparent ledger let governments seize what they can see.

User-side momentum is already building. An October integration with Near Intents opened cross-chain swaps from BTC, SOL, and USDC directly into…