Major Privacy Infrastructure Update for Zcash Wallet
The Zcash wallet, Zodl, has rolled out a significant upgrade to its underlying infrastructure. The project has transitioned to self-hosted wallet servers, moving away from its previous reliance on community-operated lightwallet servers. This shift aims to deliver a more robust and directly controlled layer of privacy protection for its users.
OHTTP Protocol: The Engine of Enhanced Anonymity
At the heart of this update is the integration of the Oblivious HTTP (OHTTP) protocol, an IETF standard. To implement OHTTP, Zodl partnered with leading edge network providers Cloudflare and Fastly.
The elegantly designed workflow separates critical pieces of information:
- The Relay (operated by Cloudflare/Fastly): Receives the user's initial wallet request. It can see the user's IP address but cannot decrypt or view the encrypted content of the request.
- The Gateway (operated by Zodl): Receives and processes the encrypted request forwarded from the relay. Crucially, it is designed to have no access to the original requestor's IP address.
This "information separation" ensures that neither the relay nor the gateway can single-handedly link a specific wallet activity to a user's IP address, enhancing anonymity at a technical level.
Rollout Schedule and User Action Required
The new privacy infrastructure deployment is now underway. The update will be rolled out progressively to Android and iOS apps over the coming week. Versions for the F-Droid repository and GitHub are also scheduled for release later this week.
Users must update their wallet app to version 3.20.0 or higher to switch to the new server architecture and activate the enhanced privacy features. This upgrade represents a key step in the wallet's journey toward greater autonomy over its privacy infrastructure, offering users a stronger technical foundation for secure and anonymous transactions.