Resources

Last reviewed: 2026-05-11

The curriculum is encrypted. The reading list isn’t.

A short, curated list of the most useful Zcash resources. Each link is something you’ll come back to.

Official starting points

• z.cash: the user-facing home. Wallets, FAQs what-is-Zcash explainers.
• zcash.org: the broader ecosystem hub maintained by the community.
• electriccoin.co: Electric Coin Company. Blog posts, Zashi, technical announcements.
• zfnd.org: Zcash Foundation. zebrad ecosystem grants, conference, governance.
• zcashcommunitygrants.org Zcash Community Grants. Apply for funding, see what’s been funded.

The spec: ZIPs, and source

• zips.z.cash: Zcash Improvement Proposals. The source of truth for the protocol.
• Zcash Protocol Specification (PDF) the formal spec. Long but authoritative.
• github.com/zcash/zcash zcashd, the original full-node implementation.
• github.com/ZcashFoundation/zebra zebrad, the independent Rust full-node implementation.
• github.com/zcash/halo2: Halo 2 reference implementation.

Community

• forum.zcashcommunity.com long-form community discussion. Where governance debates happen.
• Zcash Network School thread the parent program this site is part of.
• r/zcash: the Zcash subreddit.
• Zcash Discord: real-time chat; invitation links rotate, so check zfnd.org/community for the current one.
• On X / Twitter: @zcash, @ElectricCoinCo, @ZcashFoundation, and the unofficial-but-canonical @genzcash, ECC’s CEO once called it the project’s “memetic warfare division,” which tells you everything you need to know.

Wallets

• Zashi → Zodl: Zcash Wallet: modern shielded-by-default mobile wallet. Originally Zashi (ECC); the team spun out as ZODL and renamed the app in Jan 2026. See Wallets and /start.
• Ywallet: multi-pool, power-user wallet.
• Nighthawk: community-built shielded-first mobile wallet.
• Zecwallet Lite: long-standing desktop wallet (Sapling-only legacy).
• Zcash Foundation wallet directory vetted wallet list.

Merchant tooling

• CipherPay: non-custodial “Stripe for Zcash,” hosted checkout, Shopify/WooCommerce plugins.
• ZGo: in-person POS, any phone becomes a terminal. $1/day or $6/week.
• BTCPay Server: open-source self- hosted gateway with Zcash plugin.
• NOWPayments / CoinGate / Plisio: custodial multi-coin gateways.

See the full lesson: Accepting Zcash in Your Business.

Block explorers

• zcashexplorer.app
• zcashblockexplorer.com
• blockchair.com/zcash

Data dashboards

Curated. These tell you what the network is actually doing without the noise of price tickers.

• zecstats.com: real-time Zcash network analytics. Supply (current vs. 21M cap), daily inflation, hashrate and difficulty, shielded-pool composition (Orchard vs. Sapling vs. Sprout vs. transparent), coin-age distribution, UTXO metrics, cross-chain bridge activity, ZEC/BTC correlation. The single best page to bookmark for “how is Zcash doing.”
• ZecHub Dashboard: the community wiki’s data hub, light on chrome, complements ZEC Stats.
• Z2M: shielded-pool composition over time, small but focused.

Education hubs (community-curated)

• ZecHub Wiki: the community-run open- source education hub for Zcash. Tutorials, protocol explainers, developer quickstarts, and the dashboard above. Start here if you want a second voice on the same material this site covers.
  • ZecHub developer docs: step-by-step builds (wallets, integrations, Quick Start).
  • Shielded assets explainer.
• z.cash/learn: the official “Learn” section. Zcash 101, crypto basics, cryptography primers, monetary policy, mining, privacy, tutorials. Less opinionated than ZecHub or this site, useful for cross-checks.
• Zcash Community Hub: ambassadors, the Arborist Call (Zcash protocol updates and research discussions), and how to get involved beyond reading.
• Zcash Foundation: grants, zebrad node development, governance.

Sister projects and community sites

The Zcash Network School ecosystem includes a few sibling sites worth visiting:

• zcash.me: James’s project, NS-flavored user-onboarding site.
• zcashnames.com: James’s naming-service work on Zcash.
• ZNS intern documentation the working notes for the Zcash Network School program.

Academic and deep-technical reading

• Zerocash Paper (PDF) Ben-Sasson, Chiesa, Garman, Green, Miers, Tromer, Virza (2014). The foundational paper. Read at least the introduction.
• Vitalik Buterin’s zk-SNARK series:
  • Quadratic Arithmetic Programs
  • Elliptic Curve Pairings
  • zk-SNARKs Under the Hood
• Halo paper (Bowe, Grigg, Hopwood) recursive proof composition without trusted setup.

Cypherpunk foundational reading

• A Cypherpunk’s Manifesto (Eric Hughes, 1993) the philosophical anchor of all of this.
• The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto (Tim May, 1988) the five-years-earlier predecessor.
• The Cypherpunk mailing list archives the actual conversations that produced all this.

Things this site is intentionally not

• This site is not a real-time price/news source. Use exchanges or data dashboards for that.
• This site is not a wallet. We link to wallets; we don’t host one.
• This site is not affiliated with ECC, ZF, or ZCG. It is a Zcash-Foundation-funded community project under the Zcash Network School program. We link to primary sources where they exist.

If you spot an error or want to suggest an addition, open an issue at the GitHub repository for this site, link in the site footer.

Bookmark these three

If you only bookmark three, make them zips.z.cash, forum.zcashcommunity.com, and electriccoin.co/blog. The protocol, the conversation, and the official engineering updates, that triad covers most of what an engaged user needs to follow.