As we speak’s launch represents one other child step towards our aim of creating Zashi an easy-to-use, all-in-one consumer interface for securely storing, spending, and sending ZEC.
We’re excited to ship forex conversion and TEX deal with help in Zashi iOS 1.1.5. (We’re ending work on Zashi Android 1.1.6 with these updates and can launch it quickly.) These options are for Zcashers who need usability enhancements that don’t compromise their privateness and safety. Listed below are the main points.
Foreign money conversion
Foreign money conversion is an ordinary characteristic in most crypto wallets, so if you end up asking, “What took so lengthy to implement it in Zashi?” we get it. And right here’s the reply: In different wallets, querying an alternate or a number of exchanges for the value of a coin will reveal the consumer’s IP deal with, and their curiosity in Zcash, to these exchanges. This data can then be tied to different promoting metadata, and it turns into one other information level in your normal profile that’s getting used to surveil you on the web.
This privacy-for-convenience tradeoff is ok for lots of customers, however we all know Zcashers count on extra — and we do, too. So our engineers carried out a mechanism in Zashi to fetch forex alternate charges from a number of verified sources over the Tor community in order to not leak the consumer’s IP deal with to these exchanges. No shortcuts relating to defending Zashi customers. To our data, Zashi is the one pockets that can shield your IP deal with throughout forex conversion, however we’re trying ahead to different Zcash pockets builders adopting this innovation. 🙂
Proper now, Zashi’s forex conversion solely works for ZEC-USD. Different currencies shall be added sooner or later.
The way it works: Alternate charges are displayed on the Account, Ship, and Balances screens. Zashi all the time triggers a refresh when a consumer navigates to the Ship display or relaunches the app, and the consumer can manually refresh the speed on the Account and Balances screens as soon as each two minutes by tapping on the $ charge button. Zashi by no means shows an alternate charge older than quarter-hour.
Clear historical past
Zashi now helps recovering totally clear pockets historical past. Which means in case you imported your seed phrase from a pockets that allowed you to create totally clear transactions prior to now, these transactions will now seem in your Zashi pockets historical past.
TEX addresses
Does Zcash want one other deal with format? Prefer it or not, the reply is sure. Customers in several components of the world have entry to totally different exchanges, and plenty of exchanges have distinctive guidelines and necessities. TEX addresses remedy accessibility and value points for a whole lot of hundreds of thousands of potential Zcashers.
TEX addresses are completely for exchanges (Zashi customers gained’t have a TEX deal with of their very own), they usually make it attainable for Zashi and different wallets to ship shielded funds to an alternate like Binance, which requires clear deposits.
First, some backstory. The trouble to construct TEXes began early in January when Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency alternate, began requiring that each one deposit transactions be totally clear, i.e., the supply deal with is required to be seen to the alternate. This provides Binance the knowledge it must return funds to the depositor if the alternate decides it doesn’t wish to settle for the deposit.
A second motivator for this new characteristic is that there are a lot of exchanges that deal with Zcash as Bitcoin with solely slight changes to the code. However because of this transactions with shielded elements are sometimes not supported (they aren’t parsed appropriately) by these exchanges. In lots of circumstances, these exchanges can’t even detect transactions despatched from the shielded pool.
So when a consumer sends shielded ZEC, some exchanges can not see the funds that have been despatched — both as a result of the alternate isn’t set as much as acknowledge the transaction or as a result of, in Binance’s case, it chooses to not. In these circumstances, these funds can seem like misplaced. (The alternate deal with controls the funds however can’t see them.)
TEX addresses remedy these points by introducing logic that primarily creates an adapter, an ephemeral clear deal with, that shielded ZEC passes via earlier than arriving on the TEX deal with. So, to the alternate, the transaction has all the knowledge it must be recognizable, however the sender’s data comparable to shielded deal with, historical past, and transaction data stays non-public.
With TEXes, Binance is pleased as a result of the transaction by which they obtain the funds has a clear supply deal with, and the Zashi customers are pleased as a result of they’re not revealing their supply of funds. Equally, within the case of the transactions which are being mis-parsed, these exchanges will solely see a clear deal with and so there gained’t be any issues.
The way it works: When sending to a TEX deal with from Zashi, shielded funds move via a clear deal with earlier than arriving on the alternate. A brand new, never-seen-before and never-to-be-seen-again clear deal with is used for this intermediate step. Your Zashi pockets deal with and different particulars stay “disconnected” and due to this fact not seen to the alternate or anybody else.
Be aware: If Binance or any TEX deal with holder chooses to say no a deposit, there isn’t an automated solution to re-shield the returned funds, though they’re nonetheless managed by the Zashi pockets. ECC is engaged on an answer.
What’s subsequent for Zashi
Quick ECC priorities are launching the Coinbase Onramp and Flexa integration for fast Zcash funds. These two releases, like right this moment’s launch, deal with real-world use circumstances and are prioritized in our roadmap as a result of Zashi customers have instructed us they need them. The whole lot we ship in Zashi is with one goal in thoughts: to make it the best and greatest approach to make use of Zcash.
