As part of the evolving discussion in the #zec unified address (UA) community and Zcash address design, Zashi is updating the way UA works in the app.

So far, unified Zashi addresses included both secure and transparent recipients, in accordance with the original UA specification. They were labeled as 'Zcash Shielded Address' on the app's receiving screen.

Although this format worked as intended, recent discussions in the community highlighted a key consideration: including a transparent recipient in the UA could inadvertently reveal parts of the user's transaction history when the intention was to share only the secure address. This is particularly relevant now, given that the transparent recipient in unified addresses was initially included to ensure compatibility with centralized exchanges, but since exchanges never adopted UA support and relied on t-addresses, this does not provide practical benefits but creates privacy risks.

What is changing

Given these considerations, we have made the following changes:

Zashi no longer includes transparent recipients in unified addresses (Zcash addresses starting with the letter 'u'). The receiving screen still looks the same, but the 'Zcash Shielded Address' section now displays a rotating, secure-only UA.

Zashi will generate a new secure Zcash address every time you open the receiving screen. Generating unique addresses is generally used for privacy and security purposes.

All transactions sent to your various rotating secure addresses will remain part of a single wallet balance under the same seed phrase.

While we recommend using a new address each time, each unique address can be reused.

Both transparent and secure ZEC can be sent to secure Zashi addresses. They will be received and stored as secure ZEC.

Wallets and exchanges that do not support sending funds to secure recipients will not accept this address format. They will require transparent addresses.

If users need a transparent address (starting with the letter 't'), it is still available and displayed separately on the receiving screen.

Users need to update the app to activate this change.

If you are sharing a unified address from an earlier version of Zashi and did not intend to reveal the associated transparent address, we recommend replacing it with a newly generated address from the updated app.

Community contribution, continued evolution

This update reflects a broader shift in the ecosystem towards more user-friendly privacy settings by default. We are grateful to community members and developers who brought attention to this issue and helped shape a common path forward.

We will continue to monitor how the ecosystem evolves and adapt accordingly to provide users with the best possible experience. As always, we welcome feedback and will continue to listen to the Zcash community as we develop. Thank you for helping us improve.

— The Zashi Team$ZEC