As stated by their website “Shielded Zcash transactions are completely private”, a technology made possible by specific zero-knowledge proofs called zk-SNARKs (zero-knowledge succinct non-interactive arguments of knowledge).

“Z ero-knowledge” proofs allow one party (the prover) to prove to another (the verifier) that a statement is true, without revealing any information beyond the validity of the statement itself. For example, given the hash of a random number, the prover could convince the verifier that there indeed exists a number with this hash value, without revealing what it is. — Zcash

With shielded transactions comes a few scenarios that are worth noting. There are four cases or types of transactions that can occur:

Private to Private — Two z-addresses sending transactions to each other. Both are shielded during this transaction.

— Two z-addresses sending transactions to each other. Both are shielded during this transaction. Deshielding — A z-address sends a transaction to a t-address. “T-address” is the transparent address, with fully transparent balances.

— A z-address sends a transaction to a t-address. “T-address” is the transparent address, with fully transparent balances. Shielding — A T-address sends a transaction to a z-address.

— A T-address sends a transaction to a z-address. Public — Two t-addresses sending a transaction between each other.

Let’s look at some quick examples for Zcash

Get Account Balances Get Latest Blocks & Transactions Connect to Zcash RPC

NOTE: While it is possible to do all the above examples in direct requests without a library, it is faster and simple to show code with the SDK.

Important! Get your Free API Key:

Go to Amberdata.io to Get Started.

Get Zcash with a simple configuration

Using the following code, we are able to configure requests for Zcash using a simple namespace variable. This configures the x-amberdata-blockchain-id under the hood, and instantiates all available methods. Click here to edit example →

The portfolio and address data is by far the most valuable information available. This is accessible either with individual address requests, or by passing multiple addresses and getting many balances at once.

Get postman collection for easy API testing

For ongoing development, we’ve created a postman collection that covers all of our features and utilizes simple parameters so you can focus on building. Click here to download the collection directly, or go here for tons of resources:

Go further — Amberdata supports these features for Zcash: