Zcash Labs

On August 6, 2026, Zcash Labs published its launch announcement on its website, and on August 12 Tom HowardTom HowardTom Howard is a crypto entrepreneur and investor who says he founded the DeFi wallet Mosendo and the crypto options exchange PowerTrade, and who was head of strategy at CoinList in 2025; an active Zcash advocate, in 2026 he launched a “fund first, seek reimbursement later” funding model for Zcash projects under the Zcash Labs name.Open the full entry posted it on the Zcash Community Forum under the title of a Zcash go-to-market company; its X account was registered on August 11. Zcash Labs is an independent organization focused on solving the technical integration challenges businesses and institutions face in adopting Zcash, while also giving new projects initial funding and support; its initial focus is Zcash blockchain integration for businesses and institutions, operating independent infrastructure services, and funding projects that expand practical Zcash use. It is not affiliated with the Zcash Foundation.⁠[1][2][3][1][1][1][4]

It operates a Shielded Vote Validator and is building privacy-preserving lightwalletd and full-node instances, with new RPC services planned. Zcashtocash, a project it funded that has already launched, uses Peer to enable peer-to-peer conversion between Zcash and fiat currency, with enclaves releasing ZEC only after the fiat payment is verified, and connects to six payment apps: Venmo, Revolut, Cash App, Chime, Monzo, and Zelle.⁠[1][1][5][1][1]

Zcash Labs does not present itself as a conventional consulting firm but as a trial of a market-driven funding model built around the coinholder retroactive grants program: it covers the costs of integrations, new projects, and infrastructure itself and pays supported teams directly, then in each retroactive grants period seeks reimbursement from coinholders plus a 20% markup to cover financial risk and operating costs; coinholders decide whether to reimburse, and if they decline, Zcash Labs bears the loss. It says the model reduces the uncertainty of projects waiting on grant decisions and hopes others will replicate it.⁠[1][1][1][6][1][1]

In forum replies, Tom Howard explained that the role combines technical project management, administration, and VC-style financial underwriting and that a 20% markup is normal in the consulting market; by then Zcash Labs had made small grants of 5 to 10 ZEC to startup teams, took no equity in the companies it funded, and instead contracted them against deliverables.⁠[2][2][2][2]

On August 14, 2026, Zcash Labs submitted a third-quarter coinholder retroactive grant application for zcashto.cash requesting $6,000, the $5,000 it had advanced plus 20%. Tom Howard said yes votes would be taken as support for the model, while outright no votes would be read as opposition to the model itself rather than to the project. In the third-quarter results published on September 29, “zcashtocash via ZcashLabs” was funded.⁠[7][7][2][7][7][8]

During the NU7 coinholder vote in August and September 2026, Zcash Labs published a voting guide on its website explaining that spendable shielded ZEC had to be in the Ironwood pool before the snapshot block around August 24, that voting closed on September 14, that wallets such as Vizor, ZodlZodlZodl refers both to Zcash Open Development Lab (ZODL), a company developing the Zcash protocol and wallets, and to its Zcash mobile wallet of the same name (formerly Zashi). ZODL was founded in January 2026 by former Electric Coin Company CEO Josh Swihart, with the entire former ECC engineering and product team joining it; it continues core Zcash protocol development and did much of the work on the 2026 emergency fix of the Orchard vulnerability and the Ironwood upgrade.Open the full entry, and Zkool could be used, and that individual vote amounts and choices are hidden from validators, with only totals revealed.⁠[9][9][9][9][10]

On September 15, 2026, hardware wallet maker Ledger announced a blockchain integration and funding agreement with Zcash Labs LLC under which Zcash Labs would provide $80,000 to adapt Ledger’s Zcash integration deliverables, originally scoped to the Orchard pool, to Ironwood (NU6.3). Ledger stressed that this was a bilateral agreement separate from and independent of the Zcash community grant (No. 152) it had received earlier, and that Zcash Labs had no authority over that grant. On September 23, Ledger Wallet desktop launched Ironwood shielded send and receive.⁠[11][11][11][11][11][12]

Community member T. S. Felstead commented that Zcash Labs had committed $80,000 before coinholders had even voted on its first $6,000 reimbursement, putting its own capital at risk; he also raised the issue of grant applicants voting on their own grants, noting that Zcash Labs had disclosed holding ZEC and participating in votes but not how much. Tom Howard replied that coinholders hold large amounts of ZEC and would be harmed if grants were seen as corrupt and the price fell, so what matters is whether grants are seen as good for Zcash and reasonably priced, not how much ZEC a grantee holds.⁠[2][2][2][2][2]

At the Zcash Zummit session of the Network State Conference in Singapore on October 9, 2026, Zcash Labs’ Tom Howard was listed among the speakers.⁠[13][13]

Zcash Labs: Official website: https://zcashlabs.org/ (opens in a new window).⁠[3]

zcashto.cash: Official website: https://zcashto.cash/ (opens in a new window).⁠[7]

X: Public account: https://x.com/ZcashLabs (opens in a new window)⁠[2]

GitHub: Public account: https://github.com/zcashlabs (opens in a new window)⁠[2]