Zcash <> Nym: One step closer to a full privacy payment network

The first milestone has been reached in the process of integrating the Nym network with Zcash. The Nym HTTPS proxy can now successfully communicate and integrate with Zcash’s gRCP!

This research and development was made possible by a Nym-Zcash Network-Level Privacy grant from the Zcash Community Grants Committee. With this support the Nym team was also able to complete a security and risk assessment for the Zcash chain. This work will go a long way in ensuring the integrity and security of the chain longterm.

The first milestone of the integration was achieved using the Zingo CLI wallet, advancing the capabilities of wallets that can protect users at the metadata level and promoting privacy and censorship resistance in line with cypherpunk values.

This brings the Nym SDK one step closer to being general purpose and available for integrating Nym with any application or protocol. Even small advancements like with the Zcash integration are building blocks in Nym’s mission to rebuild the internet on new communication rails where privacy is the default, not just a feature.

Zcash and Nym mission alignment

Zcash, the privacy currency that protects your right to privacy with end-to-end encryption, is a pioneer in freedom and private payments and transactions. Zcash uses zk-SNARKs to allow users to shield their transactions, ensuring confidentiality while still maintaining the integrity and security of the blockchain. However, the metadata of transaction packets as they flow between clients and blockchain are nevertheless visible and can be traced. This is where Nym comes in.

With this Nym integration, Zcash is moving to ensure that transactions are fully protected, even while in transit, by obscuring metadata and patterns of transactions. By routing transactions via the Nym mixnet, people’s transactions can then be guarding against adversaries who might be analyzing traffic patterns in the network to deanonymize users’ identities.

By integrating the Zcash payment system with the Nym mixing and routing protocol as its base, users can finally have unparalleled privacy and anonymity when conducting personal transactions.

First integration milestone

The full integration with Zcash is a long project in research and development. But thanks to grant support from the Zcash Community Grants Committee, the Nym team has reached its first milestone.

Nym has been able to establish the first necessary connection between Nym’s own HTTPS proxy and Zcash’s gRCP. See for yourself how the connection works.

Also check out Nym’s YouTube demo to see the interaction with a Lightwalletd instance over the Nym mixnet using the Zingo CLI wallet.

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Nym Zingo CLI Wallet and Zcash demo

Securing Zcash

In addition to the dev team’s integration work, a Nym team led by Ania Piotrowska, Nym’s Head of Research, completed an investigation and report on key security vulnerabilities, vectors of attack, and possible resolutions. Read the full report here.

As Piotrowska’s report shows, the Zcash privacy model and its innovative use of zero-knowledge proofs “enable users to prove transaction validity without revealing sensitive information.”

However, there are still security vulnerabilities at the network level. In particular, the “metadata of data packets sent and received over the network during transactions can inadvertently leak crucial information even when the blockchain itself uses shielded transactions.”

This can have serious implications for user privacy. “By analyzing patterns in network traffic, adversaries can potentially infer sensitive details about transactions, such as the identities of the parties involved or the nature of the transactions.”

By integrating with the Nym network, Zcash can significantly reduce these surveillance and tracking risks, offering a more secure and tracking-resistance network for its users.

Next steps

This is just the first step, but it’s an important one. The next project for the dev team is to create a Service Provider component (transactions submission service) to run between the mixnet and Zcash nodes.

The Nym team is excited with the progress so far and look forward to continuing our collaboration with Zcash to provide privacy for everyone.

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