Swihart wrote that Zcash "should stay on Nakamoto consensus," a public challenge to Shielded Labs' Crosslink plan. Grayscale's Zcash fund reported its first weekly inflow in four weeks, and ZEC traded near $1,234 on Sunday afternoon.
One of the most consequential design debates in Zcash, whether the network should add staking, has a prominent skeptic on the record.
In a post on X early Sunday, Josh Swihart, founder of the Zcash Open Development Lab and a former chief executive of Electric Coin Company, which launched Zcash, wrote that Crosslink, a proposal from Shielded Labs to introduce staking to Zcash, "doesn't have the broad support needed to make a consensus change." He added: "Zcash should stay on Nakamoto consensus."
The post does not end the proposal. No single participant decides changes to how the network reaches agreement, and Shielded Labs had not responded publicly by Sunday afternoon. But a public statement that the support is not there changes the odds of a near-term shift in how Zcash is secured.
Two different upgrades
Crosslink should not be confused with NU7, the network upgrade expected around Nov. 5. They are separate efforts. NU7 is proceeding on its own schedule, and Swihart's comments concerned only the staking proposal.
For investors, the distinction matters. A move to staking would change Zcash's economics, and could give holders a yield. A routine network upgrade does not carry that kind of change.
The flows
Money returned to the main U.S. Zcash product last week. Grayscale's Zcash fund, which trades under the ticker ZCSH, took in about $41.1 million, according to weekly fund-flow tallies, its first inflow after three weeks in which it lost about $143.4 million. Different trackers report somewhat different figures for the fund, and the totals should be read as approximate.
ZEC traded at about $1,233.69 at 1:51 p.m. Eastern on Sunday, up about 3.9% since early that morning. The rise followed Swihart's post, but crypto prices were also moving on weekend geopolitical news, and the move cannot be attributed to any single development. Bitcoin itself slipped back below $80,000 during Asian trading on Monday.
Two readings
One reading is that the staking debate is being settled conservatively. If the network stays on its existing consensus model, investors who bought Zcash as a privacy asset with a familiar security design get continuity, and the upgrade calendar is simpler.
The other is that the debate is not over. Shielded Labs could revise its plan, and no formal decision has been announced. Without staking, Zcash also forgoes a source of yield that some institutional buyers look for.
What to watch
Any response from Shielded Labs, whether other Zcash participants state positions on Crosslink, the NU7 upgrade around Nov. 5, and weekly flows into ZCSH.