CoinDesk
Zcash will roll out quantum-recoverable wallets within a month and reach full post-quantum status within 12 to 18 months, Zcash Open Development Lab founder and CEO Josh Swihart told a Consensus Miami audience on Thursday, in a session moderated by Helius founder Mert Mumtaz. A parallel scaling track is targeting MasterCard- and Visa-level throughput on a similar horizon.
The roadmap lands mid-rally: $ZEC is up more than 110% over the past 30 days after Multicoin Capital disclosed a sizable position, with the privacy narrative pulling in capital alongside the technical milestones. Cross-chain swaps into shielded ZEC via Near Intents have moved roughly $600M to $700M since the October integration, and the shielded pool now holds about 30% of circulating ZEC — an all-time high.
Why it matters
Swihart's pitch is that Bitcoin no longer holds up as the cypherpunk-grade money it was meant to be. It works as an ETF wrapper and a store of value, he argued, but as a peer-to-peer private payment system "it's just fundamentally broken" — visible balances on a transparent ledger let governments seize what they can see. The same wealth-visibility critique drove Multicoin's Tushar Jain to disclose the fund's ZEC purchases this week, framing privacy not as ideology but as a survival feature for holders in adversarial jurisdictions.
The Near Intents rail is the part traders should actually underwrite. A user states the desired swap — USDC into ZEC, for instance — and specialized routers handle the multi-step trade across chains in the background, a model that has pulled in close to $800M in volume across Near's broader intent-based system over the past 30 days, with Ethereum, Solana and Zcash dominating the chain side.
Market impact
The cleanest near-term test is whether quantum recoverability actually ships within Swihart's stated month. The fail-safe is the shielded pool: if it keeps growing alongside price, the rally is being underwritten by adoption rather than speculation.
Frequently asked questions
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What did Zcash announce at Consensus Miami?
Zcash Open Development Lab CEO Josh Swihart said the project will ship quantum-recoverable wallets within a month and reach full post-quantum status within 12 to 18 months, with a parallel scaling push toward Visa- and MasterCard-level throughput on a similar horizon.
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Why is ZEC up 110% in the past 30 days?
The rally follows Multicoin Capital's disclosure of a sizable ZEC position and a broader rotation into privacy-focused crypto, with cross-chain swaps via Near Intents pulling roughly $600M to $700M into shielded ZEC since October.
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What is the Near Intents integration and why does it matter?
The October integration with Near Intents lets users state a desired swap — such as USDC into ZEC — while specialized routers execute the multi-step cross-chain trade in the background, removing the manual bridging step and routing capital directly into shielded ZEC.
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How much ZEC is in the shielded pool right now?
Roughly 30% of circulating ZEC is now in the shielded pool, an all-time high. Swihart framed that as the fail-safe metric: if the shielded share keeps growing alongside price, adoption is underwriting the rally rather than speculation.
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When will Zcash become fully quantum-proof?
Swihart said full post-quantum status is targeted within 12 to 18 months, with quantum-recoverable wallets shipping as the first concrete step within a month.
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