As part of an evolving community-wide conversation about Unified Addresses (UAs) and Zcash address design, Zashi is updating how UAs function in the app.
Until now, Zashi Unified Addresses have included shielded and transparent receivers, consistent with the original UA specification. These were labeled as “Zcash Shielded Address” in the app’s Receive screen.
While that format worked as intended, recent community discussions have highlighted a key consideration: including a transparent receiver in a UA can unintentionally expose parts of a user’s transaction history when the intent was to share only a shielded address. This is particularly relevant now, given that the transparent receiver in Unified Addresses was originally included to ensure compatibility with centralized exchanges, but since the exchanges never adopted UA support and rely on t-addresses, it adds no practical benefit while posing privacy risks.
What’s Changing
Given these considerations, we’ve made the following changes:
- Zashi no longer includes transparent receivers in Unified Addresses (Zcash addresses that start with the letter “u”). The Receive screen still looks the same, but under “Zcash Shielded Address,” it now displays a rotating, shielded-only UA.
- Zashi will generate a new Zcash Shielded Address each time you open the Receive screen. Generating unique addresses is commonly used for privacy and security reasons.
- All transactions sent to your different rotating Shielded Addresses will remain part of one wallet balance under the same seed phrase.
- While we recommend using a new address every time, each unique address can be reused.
- Both transparent and shielded ZEC can be sent to Zashi’s Shielded Addresses. It will be received and stored as shielded ZEC.
- Wallets and exchanges that don’t support sending funds to shielded receivers will not accept this address format. They will require transparent addresses.
- If users need a transparent address (starts with the letter “t”), it is still available and displayed separately on the Receive screen.
- Users must update the app to activate this change.
If you’re sharing a Unified Address from an earlier version of Zashi and didn’t intend to reveal the linked transparent address, we recommend replacing it with a freshly generated address from the updated app.
Community Input, Continued Evolution
This update reflects a broader ecosystem shift toward more user-friendly privacy defaults. We’re grateful to community members and developers who brought attention to this issue and helped shape a shared path forward.
We’ll continue to monitor how the ecosystem evolves and adapt accordingly to give users the best experience possible. As always, we welcome feedback and will continue listening to the Zcash community as we build. Thank you for helping us do better.
— The Zashi Team
