Odaily Planet Daily reports that the Zcash full-node development team, Zakura, stated that quantum-resistant signature opcodes are expected to be introduced to the network in January, enabling hash-based signatures for transparent payments. Zcash’s transparent payments publicly display transaction information, while shielded payments conceal the sender, recipient, and amount.
This solution combines address rotation with private information retrieval, allowing the wallet to generate a new address after each transaction and reduce public key exposure risk using WOTS hash-based signature backups. The Vizor wallet is launching its private query feature this week, and users can enable testing in settings.
Zakura’s solution currently only covers Zcash transparent payments, and the network has not yet confirmed the activation time for the opcode. Ethereum researcher Justin Drake has warned that AI-driven mathematical breakthroughs could crack the relevant signatures within months rather than years; Vitalik Buterin believes it is possible that encryption technology could be broken within the next two years. (Decrypt)