Zcash developers target January for quantum-resistant payments

• Zcash developers at Zakura plan to introduce post-quantum signature opcodes in January 2027.
• The proposed upgrade targets transparent payments using hash-based signatures designed to resist future quantum attacks.
• Zakura also describes private wallet lookups that hide address searches from servers, with experimental support available in Vizor.

Zcash (ZEC) developers at Zakura are targeting January 2027 for quantum-resistant signature support across transparent payments.

The planned upgrade would let the network verify hash-based signatures, offering an alternative to conventional cryptographic methods vulnerable to future quantum advances.

“Our team plans for post-quantum signature opcodes to land in Zcash in January,” Roman Akhtariev wrote in an engineering post for Zakura.

The signatures aim to protect funds when spending reveals a public key, reducing exposure if attackers eventually recover private keys.

Zakura also developed private information retrieval, allowing wallets to check balances without revealing queried addresses to the serving database.

The approach combines fresh addresses with hash-based signatures, while private lookups help prevent servers from linking wallet addresses through balance checks.

An experimental private-query feature is available in the Vizor wallet, although transparent transactions remain publicly visible on the blockchain.

The January target remains a development plan, not a confirmed date for activating quantum-resistant payments across the Zcash network.