The Electric Coin Company (ECC) announced the launch of a major mainnet upgrade for the privacy‑focused cryptocurrency Zcash (ZEC).
NU5 activates on mainnet, eliminating trusted setup and launching a new era for Zcash. https://t.co/tBIJC6mdU4
— Electric Coin Co. (@ElectricCoinCo) May 31, 2022
“NU5 — the first major upgrade since November 2020 — includes the launch of the shielded payment protocol Orchard, which uses the Halo verification system,” the statement said.
Halo is positioned as a ‘trustless recursive version’ of zero‑knowledge proofs. It is designed to significantly increase the system’s scalability and remove the need for ‘trusted setups’.
ECC noted that thanks to the open‑source verification system such protocols as Zcash, “gain in efficiency and security”.
The update also includes Unified Addresses — a format that gives users a single Zcash address compatible with all existing pools.
ZEC hardly reacted to the news of the upgrade activation. At the time of writing, the price hovered around $93. In the crypto‑asset ranking by market cap, the coin sits at 58th with a market cap of $1.16 billion, according to CoinGecko.
On 28 October 2021, the Zcash community marked five years since the launch of the mainnet. In that time, developers rolled out upgrades Overwinter, Sapling, Blossom and Heartwood, as well as a Canopy update and a halving.
Earlier, Electric Coin Company published project roadmap to 2025. The team described the plan as “aggressive, but achievable,” including a transition to the Proof-of-Stake consensus algorithm, interoperability and an official ECC wallet.
In April 2022, former NSA and CIA employee Edward Snowden disclosed his involvement in the launch of Zcash.
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