Network upgrade

Moving your funds to Ironwood

Last updated: July 27, 2026

Zcash has a new shielded pool called Ironwood. Your funds are safe, your addresses still work, and there is no deadline. This page explains what changed, what it costs you in privacy to move funds out of Orchard yourself, and how to do it with the least exposure if you would rather not wait.

What Ironwood is

Ironwood is a new shielded pool for Zcash: the same protocol as Orchard, now formally verified and independently audited. It activates on mainnet at block 3,428,143, around July 28, 2026. Shielded payments sent to you after that arrive in Ironwood without you doing anything.

ZEC you already hold stays in Orchard until you move it. Value that crosses between shielded pools passes through a turnstile, and the turnstile publicly accounts for what crosses. That is true of every Zcash wallet, and it is the whole reason this page exists.

Updating the app

What is in the update?

Support for the network upgrade, so your wallet keeps working through it: syncing, receiving, sending, swaps, and merchant payments. The update does not move your funds into Ironwood, and it will not offer to. The feature that automates that comes later.

Get it from Google Play. The iOS app is still in development and will ship Ironwood-ready.

Is there a deadline for moving my funds?

No. Orchard funds do not expire. They remain yours and spendable, today, next month, or whenever the migration feature arrives.

Do I need a new address?

No. Ironwood uses your existing addresses, so anything you have already shared keeps working. Your transparent balance is not in Orchard and is not affected by any of this.

Using Zapp before you migrate

Can I still send and receive normally?

Yes, once you have updated. Receiving is unchanged, and shielded payments to you arrive in Ironwood.

Sending works too, with one difference. A payment that draws on your Orchard balance crosses the turnstile, so the amount of that payment becomes public. The rest of your balance stays in Orchard as change and stays private. The same applies to swaps and to merchant payments through the offramp.

Should I hold off on spending?

If you do not need to spend, waiting for the migration feature publishes nothing. If you need to spend now, that is fine too. You are not risking your money. You are accepting that the amount of that individual payment becomes permanently public. That is a reasonable trade for plenty of people, and we would rather you made the choice knowing what it involves.

Your three options

What becomes public

Value that crosses from Orchard into Ironwood is public. Every wallet works this way, because the turnstile publicly accounts for value moving between pools. What crosses is the amount you enter on the Send screen plus the network fee. Send 1 ZEC and the public record shows 1 ZEC. The rest of the funds you spend returns to Orchard as change, and none of that is disclosed. Check the pool breakdown after each transfer to confirm what moved.

• Public: the amount you send in each transfer, plus the fee.
• Not public: who sent it, who received it, and every address involved. Those stay shielded.
• Not public unless you make it so: the fact that several separate transfers belong to the same wallet.

What you control

Pick amounts that do not describe you

Plenty of people will send 10 ZEC. Almost nobody will send exactly 10.3467 ZEC. Specific amounts point back to you. Avoid any amount that already appears somewhere public: if you withdrew a specific sum from an exchange, sending that same sum across the pools connects the two actions.

Turn on Tor protection and leave it on

Tor in Zapp covers both syncing and sending, so switch it on once in the You tab under Privacy and leave it there. Without it, your wallet reveals its IP address to the server it connects to, and that server sees every transfer you make. Someone in that position does not have to work out which transfers are yours; they watched you submit all of them.

If Tor is not usable where you are, a trusted VPN is the next best option. A VPN moves the observer from your wallet's server to your VPN provider rather than removing the observer, so choose your provider accordingly.

Spread your transfers out

If you make more than one transfer, timing matters. Transfers made minutes apart in a single sitting are easy to group together. Transfers spread across days are much harder to connect.

• Leave days between transfers, not minutes.
• Vary the time of day. Sending every evening at nine is a pattern in itself.
• Do not pair a transfer with anything else that identifies you, such as a payment you have announced publicly.

How Zapp chooses which funds to spend

Zapp spends from Ironwood first. It only draws on Orchard when your Ironwood balance cannot cover the amount on its own. That matters if you are moving your balance in stages: send yourself two transfers of the same size and the second simply spends what the first moved. Your Orchard balance does not change and you have paid a fee for nothing. To keep drawing on Orchard, each transfer has to be larger than your current Ironwood balance.

Step by step

1. 1

   Update Zapp

   Install the latest version from Google Play. An older version cannot sync or send once Ironwood is live, so do this first whether or not you plan to move anything.

2. 2

   Turn on Tor and leave it on

   Open the You tab, find Privacy, and switch on Tor. Leave it on rather than turning it on just before a transfer. This is the single largest thing you control.

3. 3

   Copy your shielded address

   On Home, tap the action button and choose Receive. Stay on the Shielded tab and tap Copy. Zapp shows a fresh shielded address every time you open Receive; the one you copy keeps working.

4. 4

   Save it as a contact

   Open the You tab, then People, then Contacts. Add a contact, paste the address, and give it a distinct name such as “My Zapp wallet” so you cannot confuse it with anyone else.

5. 5

   Send yourself a small test

   On Home, tap the action button and choose Send. Tap the address book icon, pick the contact you just saved, and send a small, non-identifying amount such as 0.001 ZEC.

6. 6

   Check where it landed

   Wait for the transaction to confirm, then tap Total balance on Home to open the pool breakdown. Your test amount should now sit under Ironwood.

7. 7

   Move the rest in stages

   Repeat the send with a larger amount each time, each one larger than your current Ironwood balance, leaving days in between. Check the breakdown after each transfer so you know exactly what moved.

How do I know whether my funds are in Orchard or Ironwood?

Tap Total balance on Home to see how much sits in each pool. When Orchard reads zero, or close to it, you are through.

The migration feature

The migration that ships in a later update moves your funds in standard-sized pieces that do not identify you, spaces the transfers out for you, and keeps them off the connection your wallet syncs on. It is strictly better than doing this by hand, which is why we recommend waiting for it.

What remains before it ships is testing, fixing what the testing finds, and tuning. That is the part we are least willing to rush. A missed defect here is not a bug we can patch later; it is a permanent public disclosure.

Need help?

Email us at hello@justzappit.xyz and we will be glad to help. There is more on how Zapp handles your data in the app privacy policy, and general questions are answered in the FAQ.