Zcash developers aim to add support for quantum-resistant, hash-based signatures in January, though no network activation date has been confirmed. The plan comes out of Zakura, one of the full-node implementations that runs and validates the ZEC network.
Zakura engineer Roman Akhtariev set out the timeline in an engineering post, saying the team plans for post-quantum signature opcodes to land in Zcash in January. The opcodes would let Zcash verify hash-based signatures, an approval method designed to withstand quantum attacks. The goal is to stop attackers from working backward from today’s public keys to forge a wallet owner’s authorization.
The upgrade has a defined scope. It would initially protect transparent transactions, which hold about 70% of issued ZEC, while shielded payments require separate safeguards. Transparent payments work much like Bitcoin transactions, with the sender, receiver and amount visible on-chain. The shielded pool faces a different risk. Zcash’s own design notes warn that an attacker holding a recipient’s address could store encrypted payment records now and try to decrypt them after a future mathematical breakthrough.
Alongside the signature work, Zakura shipped a privacy tool for wallets. It lets a wallet check balances without giving the server a readable list of addresses, and an experimental version is already live through the “Private queries” setting in the Vizor wallet.
The announcement comes amid a broader debate over AI and quantum risk. Ethereum researcher Justin Drake urged holders on Thursday to prepare for a so-called “bunker mode,” warning that in a worst case AI could find a shortcut through the math protecting bitcoin and ether wallets within months. Ethereum’s own migration to quantum-resistant cryptography targets December 2029, and no practical attack on wallet keys has been demonstrated so far. The warning added to Thursday’s market pressure before security experts pushed back on its urgency.
On the market side, per crypto.news, ZEC recovered toward $1,240 after a correction pushed it near $1,180. If Zakura delivers on schedule, Zcash would be among the first major networks to run post-quantum signatures in production. Activation, however, still depends on a network upgrade date that has not been set.
