'Not Good for Zcash': Key Developer Josh Swihart Halts ZEC Staking Upgrade

Zcash ecosystem veteran and founder of Zcash Open Development Lab Josh Swihart has blocked the discussion of a radical blockchain reform by harshly criticizing the Crosslink project. His official statement, "I don't believe this will benefit Zcash," effectively deprives the large-scale staking upgrade of any chance of adoption within the community.

The essence of the dispute is an attempt to change the cryptocurrency's DNA. The Crosslink project from the independent team Shielded Labs offers a compromise. Traditional mining is preserved for issuing coins, but a protective staking layer (locking coins for interest) is placed on top of it to rule out transaction rollbacks and hacker attacks on the network.

To ensure that user anonymity does not suffer, Shielded Labs proposed fixing staking amounts strictly in powers of 10 $ZEC (1, 10, 100, 1,000). This prevents outside observers from identifying participants inside the shielded Orchard pool.

What is the problem?

However, Swihart, the former head of Electric Coin Company, believes that the architectural price of such a compromise is too high. In his opinion, the additional layer overloads the protocol, creates new critical vulnerabilities, and is not worth the stated benefits. "Zcash should remain on classic Nakamoto consensus," the developer stated.

This confrontation has been dragging on since 2021, when developers first explored a transition to Proof-of-Stake. Having returned to the CEO post at the time, Swihart personally froze the project, calling it a destructive factor that distracted the team from scaling the coin. Later, Shielded Labs revived these developments.

As of today, the proposal has split the community. On the one hand, Crosslink has been financially backed by major outside players — Vitalik Buterin and the Winklevoss twins, who are counting on turning $ZEC into a yield-bearing asset.

On the other hand, skepticism about security is growing within the Zcash core itself. Swihart's uncompromising position shows that the project currently lacks the general consensus needed to update the code.