Zcash's shielded activity reached a four-year high

• The increase was driven by the opening of 42,000 new wallets.
• The stock of ZEC in shielded pools reached 29.1% of the circulating supply of the network.

The Zcash network recorded 62,379 private transactions between September 14 and 20, 2026. This figure represents the highest weekly peak in the last four years and ranks as the fourth largest record in the history of the protocol, published Zcash Open Development Lab (Zodl) when disclosing the network metrics.

The term shielded identifies transfers that conceal the sender, receiver, and amount through a private fund or pool. This feature allows for confidential operations to protect financial data from public scrutiny.

Zodl's analysis covers the Sapling, Orchard, and Ironwood pools from November 2018 to September 2026. During the third week of this last month, the volume approached historical levels, falling only behind the protocol's record: the 135,389 weekly transactions recorded between June 20 and 26, 2022. The historical record for weekly operations is from 2022. Source: Zodl.

This surge in protocol usage was driven by the creation of addresses that saw a marked increase. "42,000 shielded wallets created," published zkSNARKs while citing Zodl's graph, adding that in addition to the wallets, there is <<40 million dollars in volume in ZEC. There is no history, just a fact."

These zkSNARKs proofs constitute the essential technological engine of Zcash. They are a type of zero-knowledge cryptographic proof that allows the network to validate each transaction and its rules without revealing the private data of the parties involved.

This increase in daily operations occurs in a phase where confidentially shielded funds have gained greater structural weight. Currently, nearly one-third of the circulating supply of the cryptocurrency ZEC remains outside the transparent ledger.

Specifically, as of September 22, 2026, the ZecStats platform recorded 4.91 million ZEC in shielded pools, equivalent to 29% of the circulating supply and valued at 7.42 billion dollars. Within that distribution, the Ironwood pool gathered 4 million ZEC; Sapling, 503,000; Orchard, 393,000; and Sprout, 22,479 units.

The technical architecture of Ironwood integrates a commitment tree of notes, a set of nullifiers to prevent double spending, an on-chain value fund, and historical metadata. All these tools operate through the new v6 transaction format, as explained by CriptoNoticias.

Behind this technical framework, the arrival of Ironwood responds to a plan by Shielded Labs and the Zcash Foundation to restore independent auditing capability to the community. The measure was taken after researcher Taylor Hornby detected a technical flaw in Orchard in May 2026.

This problem had existed since May 2022 and allowed the creation of fake tokens without leaving a trace. Although developers deemed it unlikely to be exploited by third parties, the privacy of the pool prevented external verification. To resolve it, the update added turnstiles that verify the inflows and outflows of funds without requiring massive migrations.