Cake Wallet, a leading open-source cryptocurrency wallet historically focused on Monero (XMR), has officially expanded its privacy-focused offerings by integrating support for Zcash (ZEC). The announcement was made on January 15, 2026, marking a significant step in the wallet's eight-year history of advocating for financial privacy and self-custody.
The integration is notable for making shielded Zcash addresses the default setup within the wallet. Shielded addresses (z-addresses) utilize zero-knowledge proofs to encrypt sender, receiver, and transaction amount details, providing strong privacy. Cake Wallet's CEO, Vikrant Sharma, emphasized this philosophy, stating, "Privacy should not be an advanced setting. By enforcing shielded transactions by default, we’re making strong privacy protections the standard experience, not an optional extra."
For users who opt to use transparent Zcash addresses, the wallet implements a transparent address rotation function, generating a new address for each request to enhance privacy even in non-shielded scenarios. The update also includes background blockchain synchronization and passphrase wallet support for improved user experience and security.
Concurrently, Cake Wallet has integrated the NEAR Intents framework to power in-app, cross-chain swaps. This feature is designed to allow users, including Zcash holders, to "swap cross-chain privately, cheaply, quickly." The move leverages a cross-chain infrastructure that has seen growing industry adoption.
Seth for Privacy, Cake Wallet's Vice President, commented on the strategic addition, noting that while "Monero continues to be the king of privacy coins," Zcash attracts a different community. "We saw a gap in providing best-case privacy for those Zcash-centric users," he said, highlighting the wallet's mission to support "human freedom and flourishing" by offering top-tier privacy tools.
The integration arrives at a pivotal time for the Zcash ecosystem. The announcement notes ongoing governance disputes involving Zcash's popular shielded wallet, Zashi, and follows the entire staff of the Electric Coin Company (ECC) quitting to start a rival wallet. Furthermore, the Zcash Foundation recently disclosed that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has closed a years-long probe into the nonprofit.
Despite some criticism from a segment of Cake's user base regarding Zcash's security model—including disputed claims by firms like Arkham about deanonymizing transactions—Cake Labs COO Seth for Privacy believes the underlying demand for privacy is growing. "What the recent cycle showed is that users increasingly care about who can see their financial activity, and that demand isn’t going away in 2026 or beyond," he stated.
Cake Wallet's expansion builds on its existing support for privacy features on other networks, including Bitcoin's Silent Payments and PayJoin, and Litecoin's MWEB.
