Hassan Maishera
Privacy has become a crucial part of the cryptocurrency space in recent years, with Dash, Monero, and others recording excellent gains during that period.
Dash is now moving a step further with the integration of the Orchard shielded pool, the privacy protocol pioneered by Zcash, into its Evolution chain.
Dash Integrates the Zcash Orchard Privacy on Evolution Chain
Dash announced on Thursday, February 19, that it will integrate the Orchard shielded pool, the privacy protocol pioneered by Zcash, into its Evolution chain, Dash’s second blockchain launched in 2024.
In a press release shared with Cryptowisser, Dash added that the integration introduces enhanced shielded transactions for standard transfers, with support for privacy-preserving tokens planned shortly after launch.
Dash added that the Orchard integration is expected to go live once development and security audits are completed, with deployment anticipated next month.
As a leading privacy chain, the addition of Orchard represents a technical upgrade from Dash’s existing CoinJoin functionality, incorporating zero-knowledge cryptography developed by the Zcash ecosystem.
While commenting on the integration, Samuel Westrich, CTO of Dash Core Group, stated that,
“Our main goal has always been to give the best user experience for our users. I’ve personally been interested in ZK proof technology and its uses in blockchain since the first papers in 2014. Over the years, we have been keeping tabs on Zcash. With the latest release of the Orchard crate, we felt it was a good time to investigate adding the technology to our newer Evolution chain, which interacts seamlessly with our main Core chain.”
Westrich added that Orchard is open source and mature; integrating it has been easier than expected. Kudos to the team that built it. In Dash, the team aims to couple Orchard with our own homegrown technologies that we have been building for years to give their end users the best possible experience. The nature of the Evolution chain should allow for a more efficient, faster sync on mobile devices, a statement we are targeting to verify in the upcoming weeks.
Dash explained that the initial phase will enable Orchard shielded pools for standard Dash transfers on the Evolution chain. A subsequent upgrade is expected to extend Orchard's privacy functionality to tokenized assets issued on Evolution.
Jason McGee Stramaglia, Executive Director of Shielded Labs, added that,
“Orchard was a major milestone for Zcash and is the most advanced privacy protocol to date. It removed the need for a trusted setup and modernized the shielded pool to make transactions more practical across a wider range of use cases. It was a massive engineering effort, so it’s great to see it influencing how other projects think about privacy, and we’re glad to see Dash integrating Orchard into the Evolution chain.”
Stramaglia added that, as extending strong privacy beyond payments to assets and tokens is a natural next step that many chains are exploring, it is good to see Dash continuing to experiment.
Dash has been around since 2014 and is among the longest-operating cryptocurrencies with integrated privacy features at the protocol level. It was also the first cryptocurrency network to introduce instant transaction finality as a core feature.
The launch of the Evolution chain expands Dash’s network architecture to support additional applications and token functionality.
The integration will provide users with enhanced transactional privacy while maintaining compatibility with Dash’s broader network infrastructure.
Shielded Labs is an independent, donation-funded Zcash support organization based in Switzerland. It is the first organization in the Zcash ecosystem that has never received direct or indirect funding from the Development Fund or block rewards.
