{"document_id":"BLC-STUDY-0672","slug":"zcash-protocol","title":"Zcash protocol specification","authors":"Electric Coin Company and Zcash contributors","year":2016,"date_label":"2016","publisher":"Electric Coin Company and Zcash contributors","paper_type":"Design paper","category":"Privacy","topics":["Privacy"],"source_url":"https://zips.z.cash/protocol/protocol.pdf","source_label":"Zcash protocol specification","legacy_pdf_path":null,"sha256":null,"sha256_note":"No hash is published. This build does not store those PDF bytes, so a checksum would be invented. Where a legacy path exists, it points at the Internet Archive copy of the old library.","version":"Source cited by the 2016 study. The study is the reading. This page does not add a second essay.","doi":null,"rights_status":"Official external source only","source_status":"Official source","use_status":"Metadata and commentary only. The reading is the study page.","licence":null,"licence_label":"No licence recorded. Rights status under review.","full_text":null,"full_text_reason":"Full text is not published on this page. Public availability is not a licence to republish a document. Blockchain Lab has not recorded a licence that permits an HTML transcription, a training set, or a retrieval corpus of the paper. Text on this page is Blockchain Lab's own wording, or a pointer to a study that is also Blockchain Lab's wording.","repository":null,"editorial_line":"The Zcash protocol specification is the document that defines shielded notes, nullifiers, and the consensus rules around them. It is not the Zerocash paper, and it is not a marketing page.","canonical_url":"https://blockchainlab.com/whitepaper/zcash-protocol","record_url":"https://blockchainlab.com/research/corpus/papers/zcash-protocol","study_url":"https://blockchainlab.com/whitepaper/zcash-protocol","last_reviewed":"2026-10-01","last_checked":"2026-10-01","relationships":[{"rel":"Canonical reading","label":"Zcash study","href":"/whitepaper/zcash-protocol"},{"rel":"Related paper","label":"Zerocash","href":"/whitepaper/zerocash"},{"rel":"Related paper","label":"Halo 2","href":"/whitepaper/halo2-proofs"},{"rel":"Related paper","label":"Iron Fish","href":"/whitepaper/iron-fish"}]}