Zcash wrapped by Zenrock, unified custody layer The token, known as zenZEC, has seen a total trading volume of around $15 million since its debut on the Solana blockchain on October 31.
While this number undoubtedly pales in comparison to the blockbuster crypto tokens that routinely trade in the billions, it signals something more crucial: the introduction of privacy as a feature in decentralized finance (DeFi), currently leveraging the Solana network, known for its faster speed than Ethereum.
This reflects a growing appetite among merchants and institutions for solutions that balance usability, privacy and security.
Aditya Dave, co-founder of Zenrock, said it best: “Privacy is at the heart of the philosophy of cryptography. Over the past couple of years, commerce has entered and taken over via stablecoins, acting as institutional buyers of majors. As a result, privacy as a principle of cryptography was sacrificed.
“Zenrock brought ZEC to Solana through zenZEC to combine the speed and access of Solana with the privacy of zCash,” he told CoinDesk.
zenZEC, backed 1:1 by native ZEC, is Zcash wrapped via Zenrock’s decentralized multi-party compute (MPC) network. This network generates multiple independent secret shares from the private key, which are then distributed across a network of nodes primarily operated by independent third parties.
In other words, the private key never exists in its entirety anywhere; instead, it is mathematically split and these distributed nodes collectively sign transactions or generate public keys without exposing the full key to any single party.
This eliminates single points of failure and significantly improves overall security. Because it operates off-chain and independent of any specific blockchain, Zenrock’s MPC network is highly compatible with cross-chain (omnichain) applications.
zenZEC is therefore designed to integrate seamlessly with Solana’s decentralized exchanges and yield protocols, providing Zcash holders with true on-chain DeFi exposure for the first time in over seven years.
On-chain incentives are already at work on Orca, one of Solana’s leading decentralized exchanges, driving liquidity and adoption. Dave said zenZEC users will soon be able to deploy the token as collateral on decentralized financial protocols on Solana.
ZEC has been on a tear since September, recording a 16-fold increase to $659, according to data source CoinDesk.
