Zcash , the privacy-focused digital currency often compared to Bitcoin , is celebrating its 10th anniversary this week. Launched on October 28, 2016, the network has kept advancing its technology even during long bear markets and stretches when its price trailed many other cryptocurrencies, according to a recent Grayscale research note.
Grayscale said a key factor behind that consistency is the project’s built-in funding model for research and development. While Bitcoin miners receive the full block reward, Zcash miners get 80 percent of newly issued ZEC.
The remaining 20 percent flows into a Dev Fund that supports ongoing protocol work and ecosystem projects. Most blockchains depend on venture capital or other private sources for development; Zcash is one of the few that embeds this support directly into its protocol rules. Grayscale highlighted the successive upgrades to Zcash’s privacy pools as a clear illustration of this approach.
The network began with the original Sprout pool, followed by Sapling in 2018 and Orchard in 2022. In 2026, the Ironwood pool was introduced to address a code vulnerability; it also added quantum-recoverable addresses and formal verification of the underlying code. The firm noted that each step was backed by the protocol’s own funding mechanism.
Looking ahead, Grayscale expects Zcash developers to keep pushing higher transaction capacity, prepare for a post-quantum computing environment, and strengthen defenses against AI-driven cybersecurity threats. Sustaining that work, the researchers wrote, will continue to depend on reliable funding from multiple sources and careful allocation of those resources.
As the report read;
“We hope and expect that Zcash will continue to innovate to scale transaction capacity, prepare for a post-quantum future, and protect against the threat of AI-powered cybersecurity risks. This will likely require ongoing financial support for developers from a variety of sources and efficient allocation of funding.”
