Vitalik Buterin has donated to Shielded Labs, the independent core team contributing to the development of the privacy-focused cryptocurrency project Zcash.
The team operates under the leadership of Zcash founder Zooko Wilcox-O’Hearn and is working on the new “Crosslink” development.
Shielded Labs announced that Buterin’s donation was received to support the development of the Crosslink project. Crosslink reportedly preserves Zcash’s existing Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus mechanism while adding a parallel layer of “finality.”
Crosslink aims to provide a stronger assurance of finality by ensuring that block production and economic activity continue on the existing PoW chain, while “fixing” blocks through the added finality layer. This structure aims to prevent chain refactoring and rollback attacks.
Commenting on the donation, Buterin described Zcash’s place in the crypto ecosystem with the following words:
“Zcash is one of the most trusted cryptocurrency projects, always prioritizing privacy. Shielded Labs’ Crosslink project will make Zcash even more secure while reducing its security budget and supporting its long-term sustainability.”
*This is not investment advice.