The Zcash Foundation closed the first quarter of 2026 with $36.7 million in net liquid assets and a clean bill of health from U.S. regulators, according to its Q1 2026 report released this week.
Key Takeaways:
The Zcash Foundation closed Q1 2026 with $36.7M in net liquid assets and $817,618 in total operating expenses.The SEC concluded its investigation into the Zcash Foundation with no enforcement action, removing a major regulatory overhang for ZEC.ZF plans NU7 implementation and Z3 stack advancement in Q2 2026, with Zcon7 scheduled for Cancun this fall.ZEC dropped sharply on the news, but the Zcash network continued processing blocks and settling transactions without interruption. The Foundation moved quickly to address the transition, publishing a statement reaffirming that no single organization controls the Zcash protocol.
When ECC’s DNS seeders stopped responding, ZF deployed replacement seeders in the United States and Europe within days. The Foundation also announced a native Rust DNS seeder built on the zebra-network crate, featuring per-IP rate limiting and integrated Prometheus metrics.
Q1 operating expenses totaled $817,618, averaging roughly $272,539 per month. Team compensation was the largest single line item at $592,565. Program expenses came in at $98,068, general overhead at $93,960, and community and event costs at approximately $28,600 combined.
The Z3 stack, which integrates Zebra, Zaino, and Zallet with built-in Tor support, saw meaningful progress. Work also advanced on FROST v3.0.0, a multi-party signing protocol with cheater detection enabled by default and stronger zeroization. The Foundation expects to finalize FROST v3 and ZIP-312 in 2026.
NU7 sentiment polling gathered input from ZCAP members, coinholders, and the Engineering Caucus across five countries. ZCAP turnout hit 57%, with coinholder participation at 7.25% of circulating ZEC. Broad consensus emerged around Project Tachyon and Orchard Quantum Recoverability, which drew support from over 90% of both groups.
Proposals, including Zcash Shielded Assets and Consensus Accounts, showed significant divergence between the two panels. On March 24, the Foundation hosted Zcomm 2026, a virtual event featuring four sessions over eight hours with speakers from Web3Privacy Now, Aztec, DWeb, and the Ludlow Institute. Combined live viewership across parallel streams reached approximately 500.
In February, the Foundation welcomed Scott Onder to its board. Onder serves as Chief Investment Officer at Mercy Corps and co-founder of Mercy Corps Ventures, with a portfolio spanning 38 early-stage ventures across Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia.
Looking ahead, Q2 priorities include NU7 implementation, Z3 stack advancement, and Zebra performance benchmarking. The Foundation is also planning the Zcash Dev Summit in Rome alongside ZKProof8 and Eurocrypt, with Zcon7 set for Cancun in the fall.
