Zcash developers plan to add quantum-resistant signature support to the network in January, according to an engineering blog post cited by ChainCatcher.
Zakura engineer Roman Akhtariev wrote that the team intends to bring post-quantum signature opcodes to Zcash in January. Those opcodes would allow the network to verify hash-based signatures, giving it a way to defend against attacks tied to quantum computing. The team has not confirmed a specific activation date for the network.
The first phase is aimed at transparent transactions
The upgrade is meant to stop attackers from using current public keys to work backward and forge payment authorizations from wallet owners. In its initial stage, the change will protect transparent transactions.
Zcash has two payment modes. Shielded payments hide the sender, recipient, and amount. Transparent payments work more like Bitcoin, with addresses and amounts visible on-chain.
About 70% of issued ZEC sits in the transparent pool
CoinDesk, based on calculations using ZecStats data, reported that about 11.96 million of the 16.98 million ZEC issued as of Thursday were stored in the transparent pool. That is roughly 70% of supply. The January plan is mainly focused on that public portion.
Zakura also released an experimental private query tool
Separately, Zakura has developed a private query tool that allows wallets to check balances without exposing linked addresses to a server. An experimental version is already available in the "Private queries" settings of the Zcash wallet Vizor.
Quantum-risk debate surfaced before the post
Before Zakura published the engineering article, Ethereum researcher Justin Drake warned holders on Thursday to prepare for what he called "bunker mode." He said that, in the worst case, AI could find a shortcut to break the mathematical protections behind Bitcoin and Ethereum wallets in "months, not years."