The support organization for Zcash, Shielded Labs, has received 3221 ZEC (approximately $1.16 million) from Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss. The funds are earmarked for the development of the privacy coin’s core protocol.
— Shielded Labs (@ShieldedLabs) January 20, 2026
Shielded Labs operates independently from the main Zcash development company and does not claim block mining rewards. The organization relies on donations and focuses on research and engineering rather than commercial product creation. Among its participants is Zcash founder Zooko Wilcox.
The capital received will be directed towards long-term initiatives: the Network Sustainability Mechanism, Crosslink, and Dynamic Fees. These solutions aim to enhance the network’s security, scalability, and economic sustainability.
In a statement, Tyler Winklevoss noted that a healthy ecosystem requires the involvement of several independent teams at the protocol level. Cameron Winklevoss added that the brothers have supported the project for years, as they consider privacy a key attribute of “hard money.”
The grant comes amid structural changes in the ecosystem. Earlier, due to disagreements with the board of Electric Coin Company (ECC), a group of developers left to form a new company.
Subsequently, former ECC cryptographers introduced an alternative wallet, CashZ, based on the Zashi code, promising users an easy migration.
Back in January, the Winklevoss fund, Winklevoss Capital, invested over $50 million in Cypherpunk, a company focused on accumulating ZEC.