Privacy-focused Altcoin Zcash Devs Launch Major Update

The Electric Coin Company (ECC), the company behind the Zcash project, has announced the launch of a major mainnet upgrade for Zcash (ZEC).

According to the announcement:

“NU5 – first major update since November 2020 – includes launch secure payment protocol Orchard using the Halo verification system.”

Halo describes itself as a “trustless recursive version” of zero-knowledge proofs. It is designed to greatly increase system scalability and eliminate the need for “trusted setups”.

According to ECC, thanks to an open source validation system, protocols such as Zcash “win in efficiency and security.”

One of the most important innovations that the update brings are unified addresses, a format that provides users with a single Zcash address compatible with all existing pools.