What are ZIPs?

Zcash Improvement Proposals (ZIPs) are the way to:

• propose new features for the the Zcash cryptocurrency and their rationale,
• specify the implementation details of the feature,
• collect community input on the proposal, and
• document design decisions.

Contributing

The authors of a ZIP are responsible for building consensus within the community and documenting / addressing dissenting opinions.

Anyone can write a ZIP! We encourage community contributions and decentralization of work on the Zcash protocol. If you’d like to bounce ideas off people before formally writing a ZIP, we encourage it! Visit the ZcashCommunity Discord chat to talk about your idea.

Participation in the Zcash project is subject to a Code of Conduct.

The Zcash protocol is documented in its Protocol Specification.

To start contributing, first read ZIP 0 which documents the ZIP process. Then clone this repo from GitHub, and start adding your draft ZIP, formatted either as reStructuredText or as Markdown.

For example, if using reStructuredText, use a filename matching draft-*.rst. Use make to check that you are using correct reStructuredText or Markdown syntax, and double-check the generated draft-*.html file before filing a Pull Request.

NU5 ZIPs

This is the list of ZIPs relevant to the proposed NU5 Upgrade, which is planned to activate on Mainnet at the beginning of October 2021:

• ZIP 32: Shielded Hierarchical Deterministic Wallets (updated)
• ZIP 216: Require Canonical Jubjub Point Encodings
• ZIP 221: FlyClient - Consensus-Layer Changes (updated)
• ZIP 224: Orchard Shielded Protocol
• ZIP 225: Version 5 Transaction Format
• ZIP 244: Transaction Identifier Non-Malleability
• ZIP 252: Deployment of the NU5 Network Upgrade
• ZIP 316: Unified Addresses

License

Unless otherwise stated in this repository’s individual files, the contents of this repository are released under the terms of the MIT license. See COPYING for more information or see https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT .

Index of ZIPs

ZIP	Title	Status
0	ZIP Process	Active
1	Network Upgrade Policy and Scheduling	Reserved
2	Design Considerations for Network Upgrades	Reserved
32	Shielded Hierarchical Deterministic Wallets	Final
76	Transaction Signature Validation before Overwinter	Reserved
143	Transaction Signature Validation for Overwinter	Final
173	Bech32 Format	Final
200	Network Upgrade Mechanism	Final
201	Network Peer Management for Overwinter	Final
202	Version 3 Transaction Format for Overwinter	Final
203	Transaction Expiry	Final
204	P2P Network Protocol Differences from Bitcoin	Reserved
205	Deployment of the Sapling Network Upgrade	Final
206	Deployment of the Blossom Network Upgrade	Final
207	Funding Streams	Implemented (zcashd)
208	Shorter Block Target Spacing	Final
209	Prohibit Negative Shielded Chain Value Pool Balances	Final
210	Sapling Anchor Deduplication within Transactions	Withdrawn
211	Disabling Addition of New Value to the Sprout Chain Value Pool	Implemented (zcashd)
212	Allow Recipient to Derive Sapling Ephemeral Secret from Note Plaintext	Implemented (zcashd)
213	Shielded Coinbase	Final
214	Consensus rules for a Zcash Development Fund	Implemented (zcashd)
215	Explicitly Defining and Modifying Ed25519 Validation Rules	Implemented (zcashd)
216	Require Canonical Jubjub Point Encodings	Proposed
217	Aggregate Signatures	Reserved
218	User-Defined Assets and Wrapped Assets	Reserved
219	Disabling Addition of New Value to the Sapling Chain Value Pool	Reserved
221	FlyClient - Consensus-Layer Changes	Final
222	Transparent Zcash Extensions	Draft
224	Orchard Shielded Protocol	Proposed
225	Version 5 Transaction Format	Proposed
243	Transaction Signature Validation for Sapling	Final
244	Transaction Identifier Non-Malleability	Proposed
245	Transaction Identifier Digests & Signature Validation for Transparent Zcash Extensions	Draft
250	Deployment of the Heartwood Network Upgrade	Final
251	Deployment of the Canopy Network Upgrade	Implemented (zcashd)
252	Deployment of the NU5 Network Upgrade	Proposed
300	Cross-chain Atomic Transactions	Proposed
301	Zcash Stratum Protocol	Final
302	Standardized Memo Field Format	Draft
303	Sprout Payment Disclosure	Reserved
304	Sapling Address Signatures	Draft
305	Best Practices for Hardware Wallets supporting Sapling	Reserved
306	Security Considerations for Anchor Selection	Reserved
307	Light Client Protocol for Payment Detection	Draft
308	Sprout to Sapling Migration	Final
309	Blind Off-chain Lightweight Transactions (BOLT)	Reserved
310	Security Properties of Sapling Viewing Keys	Draft
311	Sapling Payment Disclosure	Reserved
312	Shielded Multisignatures using FROST	Reserved
313	Reduce Conventional Transaction Fee to 1000 zatoshis	Active
314	Privacy upgrades to the Zcash light client protocol	Reserved
315	Best Practices for Wallet Handling of Multiple Pools	Reserved
316	Unified Addresses	Proposed
321	Payment Request URIs	Proposed
322	Generic Signed Message Format	Reserved
323	Specification of getblocktemplate for Zcash	Reserved
339	Wallet Recovery Words	Reserved
400	Wallet.dat format	Draft
401	Addressing mempool denial-of-service	Final
402	New Wallet Database Format	Reserved
403	Verification Behaviour of zcashd	Reserved
1001	Keep the Block Distribution as Initially Defined — 90% to Miners	Obsolete
1002	Opt-in Donation Feature	Obsolete
1003	20% Split Evenly Between the ECC and the Zcash Foundation, and a Voting System Mandate	Obsolete
1004	Miner-Directed Dev Fund	Obsolete
1005	Zcash Community Funding System	Obsolete
1006	Development Fund of 10% to a 2-of-3 Multisig with Community-Involved Third Entity	Obsolete
1007	Enforce Development Fund Commitments with a Legal Charter	Obsolete
1008	Fund ECC for Two More Years	Obsolete
1009	Five-Entity Strategic Council	Obsolete
1010	Compromise Dev Fund Proposal With Diverse Funding Streams	Obsolete
1011	Decentralize the Dev Fee	Obsolete
1012	Dev Fund to ECC + ZF + Major Grants	Obsolete
1013	Keep It Simple, Zcashers: 10% to ECC, 10% to ZF	Obsolete
1014	Establishing a Dev Fund for ECC, ZF, and Major Grants	Active
guide	{Something Short and To the Point}	Draft