ChainThink reports that the Zcash development team plans to integrate quantum-resistant signature opcodes into the network in January 2027, supporting hash-based signature verification to mitigate potential threats to wallet key security from breakthroughs in quantum computing technology.
The official activation time for this feature has not yet been determined. Zakura engineer Roman Akhtariev stated that the underlying mechanism is designed to prevent attackers from deriving private keys from public keys and forging transaction authorizations.
This upgrade focuses on Zcash's transparent transaction system. As of Thursday, approximately 11.96 million ZEC were held in transparent address pools, accounting for about 70% of the 16.98 million ZEC in circulation.
Transparent transactions publicly disclose addresses and transaction amounts, while shielded transactions conceal information such as the sender, receiver, and amount. Zakura also introduces a wallet balance inquiry tool based on Private Information Retrieval (PIR), allowing users to check their address balance without exposing their address list to the server.
The experimental version of this tool is now available via the "Private queries" setting in the Zcash wallet Vizor. To date, no practical quantum attacks against mainstream cryptocurrency wallet keys have been demonstrated.