ZecHub
Organizations
Structure · Governance · Contributors
ZecHub
Organizations
Structure · Governance · Contributors
Shielded LabsShielded Labs is an independent, donation-funded Zcash support organization based in Switzerland. Its mission is to build unstoppable private money that empowers human freedom and self-sovereignty, with a focus on work that advances the sustainability, security, and scalability of the Zcash network.
Shielded Labs adds independent engineering capacity to the Zcash ecosystem. It is not part of the Electric Coin Company, the Zcash Foundation, or Zcash Community Grants, and it describes itself as the first Zcash ecosystem organization that has not received direct or indirect funding from the Development Fund or block rewards.
Shielded Labs focuses on protocol and infrastructure work that can make Zcash more resilient over the long term. Its public materials emphasize:
The organization contributes through direct engineering, public research, infrastructure support, and ecosystem coordination. It also maintains public resources for governance polling and coinholder-directed funding, helping Zcash community members understand when and how they can participate in governance signals.
Shielded Labs publicly lists several active project areas:
In October 2026 Shielded Labs launched Epoch, a dedicated effort to future-proof Zcash against quantum computing, AI-assisted attacks, and other advanced threats. The project aims to replace quantum-vulnerable cryptographic components and to apply formal verification to critical parts of the protocol.
Epoch is led by a three-person cryptography team:
Phase 1 focuses on surveying existing research, evaluating candidate constructions against Zcash security and performance requirements, and producing a concrete post-quantum proposal. A production-ready implementation is targeted for the end of 2027.
In 2026, Shielded Labs played an important role in the ecosystem response to the Orchard counterfeiting vulnerability. The vulnerability was discovered by Shielded Labs security researcher Taylor Hornby and disclosed to Zcash Open Development Lab (ZODL), which coordinated an emergency remediation with other Zcash contributors.
After the emergency fix, the community still needed a way to restore independent confidence in Zcash's circulating supply. Ironwood addressed that by creating a new shielded pool using the corrected Orchard circuit and by sealing the original Orchard pool so funds could leave only through the turnstile. Shielded Labs worked alongside Project Tachyon, Valar Group, ZODL, and the Zcash Foundation on the design, review, and ecosystem preparation for Ironwood.
This work demonstrated one of Shielded Labs' core roles in Zcash: adding independent protocol-development and security capacity outside the original Zcash development organizations.
Shielded Labs also publishes governance information for Zcash community members. Its governance page tracks protocol governance polls, ZCAP participation, coinholder-directed funding, and supported voting wallets. This helps make Zcash decision-making easier to follow for coinholders, ZCAP members, and broader community participants.
Zcash does not use automatic on-chain governance for protocol changes. Polls and community input are advisory signals that feed into the broader rough-consensus process. Shielded Labs' governance work helps make those signals more accessible and easier to verify.
