We’ve been doing a lot of assessing and organizing over the last couple months to make sure we’re delivering on our mission: building and supporting Zcash to drive greater freedom and opportunity for everyone. Last month, we wrote about our transition from an engineering-led to a market-led product strategy. We’ve weighed in on the proof of stake conversation, and kicked off a study to support Zcash Shielded Assets.
And we’re planning for a January activation of NU5 and a big release of the Halo Arc product suite, including the NU5-compatible Zcashd, an updated ECC Reference Wallet, updated mobile wallet SDKs, and features that will enable Zcash to be Shielded by Default.
Although we originally hoped to release Halo Arc this fall, we’ve allocated additional time for our third-party implementation audit cycle which is scheduled to complete next week. We also discovered some ways to facilitate better interoperability between Zcash and projects that are planning to use Poseidon, so we’re working on a generally-usable Poseidon specification which might lead to a change in our implementation.
The updated timeline reflects our commitment to the safety and quality of the upgrade and releases. It allows us to incorporate audit findings, it allows us to reinforce the team where needed, and it ensures we’re not trying to push several new releases during the holidays.
It also gives us a bit of time to ramp up on adoption efforts. First, we need to make sure wallets and exchanges are ready for Halo Arc. Shielded by Default requires it. And we’re being tight-lipped at the moment, but we have some exciting campaigns in the works, partnering with some of the most interesting and innovative teams in the space to broaden reach and get new users onboarded on Zcash. We can’t wait to show you all.
There will be additional announcements over the coming weeks. Stay tuned (and you’ll want to make sure you put this Messari event on your calendar).
We’re confident this schedule adjustment will allow adequate time for a safe deployment of NU5 and plenty of time to work with our partners to ensure they’re ready at the time of activation. We’re incredibly excited about NU5 and what it means for the future of Zcash and look forward to a successful upgrade!
