Dash Enhances Privacy on Evolution with Zcash-Based Shielded Transfers

• Dash has added shielded transactions that rely on the Zcash Orchard technology to its Evolution chain to boost payment privacy.
• Next will be shielded tokens, which will hide balance and transaction history using zero-knowledge proofs.

Two of the crypto industry’s privacy-focused pioneer projects are teaming up to enhance transaction privacy. Dash announced that it was integrating the Zcash Orchard shielded pool into its Evolution chain to offer secure confidential transactions.

Dash launched Evolution in 2024 as its sidechain for developers to build apps that are powered by Dash but not limited to basic payments. The original chain relies on CoinJoin, which is presented to users through PrivateSend where multiple users’ transactions are mixed together, making it harder to trace a singular transaction path.

However, on Evolution, these privacy features don’t exist and all transactions are transparent. This approach has alienated the core Dash users who used it for enhanced privacy. This is set to change with the introduction of a shielded credit pool based on Zcash’s Orchard technology, Dash has revealed.

Introduced in 2022 and built on the Halo 2 cryptographic system, Orchard is Zcash’s privacy engine that relies on zero-knowledge proofs to present funds as encrypted onchain notes.

To integrate Zcash technology, the Dash team had to navigate around the challenge of merging its hybrid PoW/PoS consensus with Zcash’s proof of work system (although, as we reported, Zcash could be going the PoS way if Vitalik Buterin-backed Shielded Labs has its way).

Shielded Tokens on Dash

Once the shielded credit pool based on Orchard technology is live, the Dash team will start working on shielded tokens. These will function similarly to Shielded Assets on Zcash, whose balances and transactions are hidden from the public via zero-knowledge proofs. However, the shielded tokens will have wider functionality and will exist on separate shielded pools, rather than the one unified pool for Zcash’s Shielded Assets.

The Dash team noted:

The team further pledged to uphold confidentiality even as it pushes to make money and data secure, permissionless and easy to use in an era where privacy cryptos are facing widespread crackdowns.

As CNF reported, over 70 crypto exchanges delisted Monero last year to comply with new regulations. However, XMR has shown resilience, with its usage unaffected by the delistings.

Zcash faces a different set of challenges, with internal disputes over its stewardship threatening the project’s future. Disagreements over funding, development and decision making have split the Electric Coin Company, Bootstrap and the Zcash Foundation into three warring camps, as we reported.