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Arkham tracks 53% of Zcash privacy transactions

Zcash’s reputation for privacy has been questioned after Arkham Intelligence traced the origins of over half (53%) of all ZEC transactions to known individuals or organizations.

Summary

  • Arkham Intelligence labeled over 53% of all Zcash transactions and linked $420 billion in ZEC volume to identifiable individuals and institutions.
  • The tracking covers 48% of all transaction inputs and outputs and 37% of total ZEC balances, approximately $2.5 billion, per Arkham’s published research.
  • Zcash founder Zooko Wilcox clarified that fully shielded-to-shielded transactions remain cryptographically protected and that Arkham cannot access the shielded pool.

Arkham Intelligence, a company specializing in blockchain analysis, recently discovered it had identified the parties behind over half of all Zcash transactions. This accounts for around $420 billion worth of ZEC. Their findings, released in December 2025, sparked a discussion about how private Zcash actually is, given its design allows users to choose whether or not to hide their transactions.

Arkham monitors nearly half of all Zcash transactions – 48% of both incoming and outgoing funds – and connects around $2.5 billion, or 37% of all Zcash in circulation, to identifiable owners. Importantly, Arkham didn’t break Zcash’s encryption. Instead, they pieced together information from various sources – including transaction patterns, exchange data, known seizures, and publicly visible addresses – to link activity to specific individuals and organizations.

Zcash is a cryptocurrency designed with privacy in mind, built using the technology behind Bitcoin. It uses something called zk-SNARKs to conceal details of transactions on the blockchain. However, our research shows that most Zcash activity *can* still be tracked. We’ve created a guide explaining how Zcash works and detailing methods for tracking transactions.

— Arkham (@arkham) May 25, 2026

Why Arkham can track most Zcash activity but not all of it

The main difference lies in how transactions are handled: they can be transparent or shielded. Zcash doesn’t automatically hide your transactions – you have to choose. You can use standard ‘T-addresses’ which are public, or ‘Z-addresses’ that use advanced technology to keep the sender, receiver, and amount of the transaction private.

“[Arkham] didn’t actually deanonymize any ZEC that was held at rest in the shielded pool,” Zcash founder Zooko Wilcox said in response to the announcement. Tracking such transactions would be “impossible because the information just isn’t there,” he added.

By December 2025, less than 25% of all Zcash (ZEC) was held in its privacy-focused shielded pool. Most ZEC transactions happen on publicly visible addresses, especially on major cryptocurrency exchanges that almost always use these transparent addresses. Crypto.news has been following the recent surge in ZEC’s value—a 73% increase in one month—which is being fueled by growing interest in quantum resistance and privacy features.

Why the Arkham disclosure matters as ZEC rallies and NU7 approaches

Concerns about quantum computing and an upcoming upgrade to the NU7 network brought privacy coin Zcash (ZEC) back into the spotlight in May 2026. While the newer Orchard pool offers improved privacy compared to the older Sapling pool, most ZEC transactions still use the older system.

As long as privacy-enhancing technologies aren’t widely adopted, it will continue to be possible to track most activity on the network by analyzing transaction patterns, much like how things are done with Arkham Intelligence.

Crypto.news has been reporting on the potential dangers quantum computing poses to cryptocurrencies. Research suggests it would take roughly 2,330 powerful quantum bits, known as qubits, to crack the cryptography that secures Bitcoin. As the development of quantum computers speeds up, privacy technologies that use zero-knowledge proofs are gaining attention as a possible way to protect against these threats.

Crypto.news recently highlighted a Citi report warning that a quantum computer attack on major financial institutions could threaten $2 to $3.3 trillion in economic output. This makes Zcash’s new NU7 privacy upgrades particularly important for risk managers at those institutions who are monitoring developments in this area.

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2026-05-26 01:09