Right this moment’s launch represents one other child step towards our aim of constructing Zashi an easy-to-use, all-in-one consumer interface for securely storing, spending, and sending ZEC.
We’re excited to ship foreign money 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 here are the main points.
Forex conversion
Forex conversion is a normal 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 trade or a number of exchanges for the worth 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 knowledge level in your common 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 applied a mechanism in Zashi to fetch foreign money trade 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 in terms of defending Zashi customers. To our information, Zashi is the one pockets that can defend your IP deal with throughout foreign money conversion, however we’re wanting ahead to different Zcash pockets builders adopting this innovation. 🙂
Proper now, Zashi’s foreign money conversion solely works for ZEC-USD. Different currencies will probably be added sooner or later.
The way it works: Alternate charges are displayed on the Account, Ship, and Balances screens. Zashi at all times 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 $ fee button. Zashi by no means shows an trade fee older than quarter-hour.
Clear historical past
Zashi now helps recovering absolutely clear pockets historical past. Because of this in case you imported your seed phrase from a pockets that allowed you to create absolutely 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 numerous components of the world have entry to completely different exchanges, and lots of exchanges have distinctive guidelines and necessities. TEX addresses clear up accessibility and value points for lots of of tens of millions of potential Zcashers.
TEX addresses are completely for exchanges (Zashi customers received’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 trade 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 trade, began requiring that each one deposit transactions be absolutely clear, i.e., the supply deal with is required to be seen to the trade. This provides Binance the data it must return funds to the depositor if the trade decides it doesn’t wish to settle for the deposit.
A second motivator for this new characteristic is that there are various exchanges that deal with Zcash as Bitcoin with solely slight changes to the code. However because of this transactions with shielded parts are sometimes not supported (they aren’t parsed appropriately) by these exchanges. In lots of instances, these exchanges can’t even detect transactions despatched from the shielded pool.
So when a consumer sends shielded ZEC, some exchanges can’t see the funds that have been despatched — both as a result of the trade isn’t set as much as acknowledge the transaction or as a result of, in Binance’s case, it chooses to not. In these instances, these funds can look like misplaced. (The trade deal with controls the funds however can’t see them.)
TEX addresses clear up these points by introducing logic that primarily creates an adapter, an ephemeral clear deal with, that shielded ZEC passes by way of earlier than arriving on the TEX deal with. So, to the trade, the transaction has all the data it must be recognizable, however the sender’s data equivalent to shielded deal with, historical past, and transaction data stays non-public.
With TEXes, Binance is completely happy as a result of the transaction wherein they obtain the funds has a clear supply deal with, and the Zashi customers are completely happy 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 received’t be any issues.
The way it works: When sending to a TEX deal with from Zashi, shielded funds cross by way of a clear deal with earlier than arriving on the trade. 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 trade or anybody else.
Observe: If Binance or any TEX deal with holder chooses to say no a deposit, there isn’t an computerized solution to re-shield the returned funds, regardless that they’re nonetheless managed by the Zashi pockets. ECC is engaged on an answer.
What’s subsequent for Zashi
Speedy ECC priorities are launching the Coinbase Onramp and Flexa integration for fast Zcash funds. These two releases, like immediately’s launch, deal with real-world use instances and are prioritized in our roadmap as a result of Zashi customers have advised us they need them. All the things we ship in Zashi is with one goal in thoughts: to make it the best and finest approach to make use of Zcash.
