The community-led multichain DEX aggregator, ShapeShift announces the integration of Zcash, bringing shielded transactions directly into the ShapeShift self-custodial wallet ecosystem and making it one of the first decentralized exchanges to offer true privacy onchain for its users.
The integration also sees Zcash Community Grants make a grant of $50,000 USD to support ShapeShift’s technical and marketing investments.
Zcash, long regarded as a cornerstone of privacy innovation, has seen renewed momentum amid growing unrest over onchain surveillance and regulatory overreach. With this integration, ShapeShift users can now trade and swap ZEC privately across chains such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Arbitrum, while maintaining full self-custody of their assets.
The partnership underscores ShapeShift’s conviction that blockchain and crypto should operate as public infrastructure, not gated financial products. By embracing Zcash’s privacy technology, ShapeShift demonstrates that transparency through code can coexist with user sovereignty and security without sacrificing freedom to compliance-driven intermediaries.
Behind the scenes, ShapeShift has implemented extensive infrastructure upgrades with the grant from Zcash Community Grants accelerating the project. The platform now leverages Liquify’s node network for faster execution, greater reliability, and the flexibility to onboard new chains like Zcash with minimal engineering lift. The application interface has also been redesigned into a cleaner, Uniswap-style swapper optimised for mobile — reflecting ShapeShift’s renewed focus on performance and accessibility.
As regulators tighten restrictions on privacy technology, ShapeShift and Zcash are standing firm for user choice and digital autonomy.
ShapeShift Growth and Community Workstream Leader Houston Morgan said: “Privacy shouldn’t be scary, but trading ZEC on centralised exchanges often is. Their very structure and legal risk kill true privacy. This partnership puts control back in the user’s hands. It is a perfect use case for our DAO structure and multichain functionality. We want to show that crypto can remain open, accessible, and private — just as it was always meant to be.”
Professor Chris McCarthy, Tokenomics Workstream Leader at ShapeShift DAO, said: “Integrating Zcash is more than a product decision, it’s a philosophical one. Privacy and transparency can coexist through cryptography, and this partnership proves that decentralised systems can defend both freedom and function. It's the next evolution of what crypto was always meant to be.”
The Zcash Community Grants team added: “Integrating shielded ZEC into ShapeShift DAO expands access to unstoppable private money. It gives the ShapeShift community a decentralized path to acquire and use ZEC without relying on centralized exchanges, aligning perfectly with the values of privacy, freedom, and self-custody that Zcash was built for.”