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Zcash developers plan a fix to keep ZEC swaps private from future quantum computers
The change would give each swap a separate viewing key and use private information retrieval to hide refund history from future quantum attacks.
- On Monday, October 19, 2026, Zcash infrastructure developer Zakura proposed a new wallet security feature giving each ZEC swap through NEAR Intents a separate viewing key to protect transaction histories against potential future quantum computing attacks.
- NEAR Intents permanently publishes shielded Zcash addresses on the public blockchain, creating a vulnerability where a sufficiently powerful quantum computer running Shor's algorithm could theoretically recover an incoming viewing key to link every payment a user has received.
- The proposed system generates a different viewing key for every swap while keeping the wallet's existing spending key unchanged, ensuring funds remain secure since the recovered key would not allow an attacker to transfer the user's ZEC.
- Software wallets using Zakura's open-source libraries, such as Vizor, could begin integrating this design in the coming weeks, while hardware wallet support will follow once the relevant firmware can accommodate the new key derivation process, according to the team.
- This proposal arrives as developers rush to address quantum risks; Zcash developers separately targeted January 2027 for introducing post-quantum signature instructions to protect spending authorization, a different concern from the one-time viewing keys proposed by Zakura.
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11 Articles
Zcash developer proposes quantum privacy fix for NEAR Intents swaps
Zcash infrastructure developer Zakura has proposed a new wallet security feature that would give each ZEC swap through NEAR Intents a separate viewing key to protect users’ transaction histories against potential future quantum computing attacks. In an engineering post, Zakura…
Proposed Zcash Wallet Fix Targets Quantum Linkability in Shielded Swaps
TL;DR Zakura proposes one-time incoming viewing keys for Zcash swaps, limiting how much a future quantum attacker could link if a shielded address is publicly exposed. The risk is theoretical today: it depends on sufficiently powerful quantum computers recovering a viewing key from an exposed address, not on a demonstrated breach. The design keeps spending ...
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