Why 30% of Zcash supply is now in the shielded pool

Roughly 5 million ZEC out of 16.7 million circulating now sits in shielded addresses, up from 8 percent in early 2024. Orchard alone holds 4.2 million ZEC, or 25.4 percent of supply, and has absorbed nearly all the recent growth. Public ZEC transaction counts have stayed flat at around 8,500 per day while shielded transaction adoption hit an all-time high of 59.3 percent in February 2026.

Shielded supply measures the total ZEC held in shielded addresses and can be verified directly on chain; cryptographic proofs prevent the number from being faked. Moving funds into the shielded pool requires constructing a shielded transaction, generating a zero-knowledge proof, broadcasting it and waiting for confirmation—steps that reflect an active holder choice rather than automatic exchange custody.

Zcash has three generations of shielded pools. Sprout holds 25,591 ZEC (about 0.2 percent), Sapling holds 635,812 ZEC (about 3.9 percent), and Orchard holds 4.2 million ZEC (25.4 percent).

zcash, zec, shielded pool, orchard, sapling, sprout, zero-knowledge, shielded addresses, shielded supply, shielded transactions