ChainCatcher report: The Zakura team, which is developing the new software version for the Zcash network, has published an engineering article stating their plan to assign a unique viewing key to each ZEC swap completed via NEAR Intents, closing a vulnerability that could allow future quantum computers to reconstruct users’ payment histories by piecing together public refund addresses. NEAR Intents enables cross-chain token swaps; when users exchange privacy-focused ZEC for USDC, the service publishes one of the user’s Zcash addresses on the NEAR public chain to return any unused ZEC. A Zcash address contains a public key derived from a wallet’s viewing key—computationally infeasible to reverse on conventional computers, but theoretically breakable by large quantum computers running Shor’s algorithm. While Zcash wallets can generate multiple seemingly unrelated addresses, they typically share a single viewing key; if compromised, an attacker could link all payments received by the account and read both amounts and notes. Zakura’s solution assigns a unique viewing key to each swap, while keeping the spending key within the user’s main account: even if a future refund address is breached, an attacker would only see payments related to that specific swap. This design also solves a practical challenge: wallets performing hundreds of swaps would generate hundreds of keys, requiring each key to scan the entire Zcash blockchain during backup recovery. Zakura’s solution is a privately queryable database using private information retrieval (PIR) technology, ensuring that when a wallet queries the location of a refund, the database cannot determine which address was queried. Zakura states that wallets built on its open-source library—including Vizor—will be able to add this feature within the coming weeks, with hardware wallets following once firmware support is available, ahead of Zcash developers’ targeted January deadline for quantum-resistant payments.
The Zcash Development Team to Assign Unique Keys for Each ZEC Redemption to Prevent Quantum Hacking
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Summary
The Zcash development team has announced a network upgrade to assign unique viewing keys for each ZEC redemption, designed to prevent quantum hacking. This initiative, part of the Zakura team’s new Zcash network software, leverages NEAR Intents to publish refund addresses. Each key isolates transactions, minimizing exposure in the event of address compromise. The team has also launched a private query database to assist with wallet recovery. Wallets utilizing Zakura’s open-source library, such as Vizor, will deploy the feature shortly, with hardware wallets to follow. The upgrade supports new token listings and enhances Zcash’s security framework.
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