One year ago, we published our very first State of the Network announcing the successful launch of Zcash 1.0 “Sprout”. Much of the Zcash team were gathered in the livingroom of an Airbnb in Pacifica, California to see the project we had dedicated many months of effort to build finally reach genesis. And many of you watched.

Since then, the Zcash ecosystem has experienced radical growth, the Zcash network has been pushed to limits and the Zcash zk-SNARK technology has gained substantial notoriety in the greater cryptocurrency and privacy communities. In one year, we’ve seen adoption of Zcash into wallets developed by both individuals in the community and established companies. We’ve seen adoption into markets all around the world.

Since the launch of Zcash, we’ve released 12 software updates for the official Zcash client and have additionally maintained a regular schedule of weekly developer updates.

We’ve improved internal procedures including the official client release cycle and a security procedure for investigating potential vulnerabilities to users. We’re proud to be able to state that no bugs in the code have caused loss of funds or loss of privacy.

During this year, the Zcash Foundation established itself as an entity distinct from the Zcash Company with it’s own executive board and regular weekly office hours. Some of their first projects include distributing pioneer awards to key contributors in the Zcash community, helping organizations accept Zcash donations and establishing a Grant program to fund ideas and projects improving the Zcash ecosystem. More recently, the Foundation was granted 501(c)3 status.

Research and development for Zcash 2.0 “Sapling” is well underway. We are planning the roadmap documenting what the steps will be to get there with a goal to have it ready by the end of 2018. Sapling will bring with it substantial improvements to the security and efficiency of the cryptography used by Zcash shielded addresses.

While we wait for Sapling, however, other previously mentioned features will be introduced into Sprout which improve usability of shielded addresses.

The future year has a lot more in store for Zcash and we look forward to sharing those achievements in the 2 year anniversary State of the Network.

Happy Birthday Zcash Community! <3