Zakura Targets January 2027 for Post-Quantum Signatures on Zcash (ZEC)

January Target for Hash-Based Signatures

Zakura, an independent full node implementation for privacy coin Zcash (ZEC) built by Valar Group and Project Tachyon, plans to land post-quantum signature opcodes on the network in January 2027. Engineer Roman Akhtariev set the timeline in an engineering post this week, writing that “our team plans for post-quantum signature opcodes to land in Zcash in January.” The instructions would let the network verify hash-based signatures, a foundation separate from the elliptic-curve cryptography that secures transparent payments today, and one that resists the known route from an exposed public key back to a private key. The January date is a development target, not a scheduled hard fork: the post named no Mainnet activation date, no final network upgrade specification and no mandatory migration schedule. As an interim measure, the team said wallets can already pair a hash-based scheme known as WOTS, the Winternitz One-Time Signatures construction, with the usual elliptic-curve key to build post-quantum-safe rotating transparent addresses, though no integrated wallet flow for that combination exists yet. Zakura shipped its first release in July 2026 with faster synchronization and support for the Ironwood upgrade; our earlier coverage tracked the network's NU7 testnet activation at block 4,465,026. The announcement lands with the Zcash (ZEC) price near $1,240 on Friday after a weekly drop of roughly 12%.

Seven in 10 ZEC Sit in Public Addresses

Transparent addresses hold the bulk of the issued supply. On-chain data compiled from ZecStats put 11.96 million ZEC in the transparent pool on October 9, out of roughly 16.98 million coins issued, a share of 70.4%, with another 4.95 million spread across the shielded pools. Transparent payments expose the wallet address and the amount moved, much like Bitcoin, while shielded payments conceal sender, recipient and amount. A standard transparent address initially hides its public key behind a hash; spending publishes that key, and leftover coins moved to a fresh address sit behind an undisclosed one again. The team also warned that exposing an account's extended public key can reveal additional keys tied to the same wallet. Zakura's answer to the lookup problem is private information retrieval, a method that lets a database serve a record without learning which one was requested. Confirmed activity is split into block ranges, each publishing a compact filter of roughly 15 KB per 10,000 payment scripts; the wallet checks filters locally and makes a private request only on a possible match. The same method can rebuild a wallet's history from its mnemonic, including addresses that now hold nothing. An experimental version is live in the Vizor wallet under the “Private queries” setting.

ZEC Rebounds Near $1,240 After Bunker Mode Call

Ethereum Foundation researcher Justin Drake sharpened the debate on October 7, calling on the industry to prepare for “bunker mode,” a shift of funds into addresses that have never signed a transaction. He argued it is reasonable to brace for a break of ECDSA before quantum hardware arrives, in the worst case “in months not years,” and urged holders not to rush or panic. No practical attack on wallet keys has been demonstrated, and Ethereum has set a December 2029 target for its own migration. ZEC ended Thursday around $1,185, down roughly 11% over the week and leading declines among top coins after the post spread on X. On Friday the token rebounded near $1,240, a gain of about 2.5% in 24 hours, with daily volume near $1.57 billion and a market capitalization of roughly $21 billion, still close to 12% lower over seven days. Daily chart data show an intraday low of $1,181.84 and a recovery that sits below the nine-day simple moving average at $1,305.05, the resistance traders watch, with support near $1,180. Analyst Trader Symba flags the 1,300–1,330 zone as the recovery threshold, opening 1,350–1,370 and then $1,430 if held, while More Crypto Online reads the pullback as a fourth-wave correction that needs a break above the prior high to confirm an end; the MACD histogram printed -46.32, showing strengthened selling momentum. A separate forecast from our desk had Ardi expecting rejection near $1,500 before another leg down, and the fuller setup lives on our Zcash technical analysis page.

A Target, Not an Activation

Read against the official quantum recovery design in ZIP-2005, the January plan addresses the public side first while the shielded side carries a documented risk of its own: an attacker who obtains a recipient's address can store encrypted payment records now and attempt decryption after a future mathematical breakthrough. Ironwood's recovery provisions do not make the existing shielded cryptography quantum-resistant, so the shielded pools need separate safeguards before any real protection is complete. Until a network upgrade specification and an activation height are published, node operators face no mandatory change and users face no forced migration. What exists today is mitigation of a narrower kind, address rotation plus the experimental Vizor private queries, and holders who want full insulation from key exposure still fall back on a cold wallet.