The Electric Coin Company (ECC), which is responsible for the development of the Zcash (ZEC) cryptocurrency and the Zashi wallet, has released its strategic roadmap for the fourth quarter of 2025. The main focus is on enhancing transaction privacy, improving user convenience, and ensuring reliable management of developer funds. This comes against the backdrop of a rapid increase in the price of ZEC, which has now reached $419.4, as well as a significant rise in the number of protected tokens on the network.
This is reported by Business • Media
Key priorities and innovations from ECC
In the new roadmap, ECC has highlighted four key areas of work for the coming months:
- Implementation of temporary (ephemeral) addresses for each transaction through NEAR Intents, which will reduce the correlation between operations and enhance privacy.
- Automatic updating of transparent addresses after each receipt of funds, aimed at increasing user anonymity.
- Enhancing the stability of operations with Keystone hardware wallets by improving the synchronization and disconnection processes.
- Additional support for multi-signature wallets (P2SH) in Keystone, which will provide more secure management of Zcash developer funds.
“This quarter, ECC is focusing on reducing technical debt, improving privacy and user convenience for Zashi, as well as ensuring seamless management of the developer fund. We will adjust our approach and intensify efforts based on market conditions and ECC’s revenues,” the company stated.
Protocol development and market trends
The official ECC roadmap anticipates further work in two directions: enhancing the Zcash protocol and developing practical products that help users protect their privacy in daily financial transactions. According to ZecHub, the number of protected tokens in the Orchard protocol has exceeded 4.1 million ZEC — this figure has seen the most significant increase since September and indicates growing trust in the new version of the protocol.
From August to October 2025, ECC implemented a series of notable technical updates. In particular, on August 28, Zashi launched a decentralized off-ramp for withdrawing protected ZEC, and on October 1, a decentralized on-ramp (swaps). At the same time, the company temporarily disabled the Coinbase platform due to new exchange requirements regarding session tokens, which ECC believes “undermine privacy.”
Upcoming changes planned for Q4 are aimed at enhancing security and convenience for users by preventing address reuse and simplifying integration with hardware wallets.
ECC emphasizes its mission — “to provide people with economic freedom through the protection of privacy, consent, security, and dignity”. The company has also invited developers to participate in joint planning sessions, which will take place twice a year.
Despite plans to ban anonymous cryptocurrencies, including Zcash and Monero, in the EU starting in 2027 under new anti-money laundering regulations, activity on the Zcash network is only gaining momentum. As early as 2024, Binance categorized ZEC as a high-risk asset, and in 2025, Grayscale conducted a private placement of shares in the Zcash Trust.
Additionally, at the beginning of October, venture investor Naval Ravikant noted that even the creator of the first cryptocurrency, Satoshi Nakamoto, would not be able to fully use it due to government control, emphasizing that Zcash is the solution to this problem.