The Zcash Foundation released its Q1 2026 report on May 19, 2026, covering financials, engineering work, governance activity and regulatory developments for the quarter ended March 31, 2026. The Foundation’s disclosure is available through the Q1 2026 report page and downloadable Q1 2026 PDF, with the SEC-related update detailed in the Foundation’s notice concluding the SEC investigation.
SEC review closes and treasury position is disclosed
The Foundation announced on January 14, 2026, that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission had concluded its review and informed ZF that it did not intend to recommend enforcement action or other changes. The inquiry began with an August 31, 2023 subpoena tied to “In the Matter of Certain Crypto Asset Offerings (SF-04569).” The public notice confirms the no-action outcome, but does not disclose the exact date on which the SEC informed the Foundation.
ZF reported $36.69 million in net liquid assets as of March 31, 2026, after $12,714 in liabilities. The unaudited Foundation-reported balances included $12.12 million in cash, 506,556.33 USDC, 85,412.34 ZEC valued at $21.20 million, 41.80 BTC valued at $2.85 million, and 12.02 ETH valued at $25,299. The ZEC valuation used an end-quarter price of $248.22 per ZEC.
Quarterly operating expenses totaled $817,618, with average monthly operating expenses of about $272,539. Team compensation accounted for $592,565, program expenses for $98,068, general overhead for $93,960, and community/outreach spending for $16,335. ZF also reported that 50.4% of resource allocation went to Protocol/Zebra, with smaller allocations to management and general, community, FROST and the Shielded Aid Initiative.
Engineering roadmap and governance signals
ZF said its Q1 engineering work focused on Zebra security and correctness, the Z3 stack, zcashd deprecation, FROST tooling and protocol specifications. The Foundation reported three Zebra releases during the quarter, including Zebra 4.3.0, which patched two responsibly disclosed vulnerabilities: CVE-2026-34202, a remote DoS issue, and CVE-2026-34377, a consensus logic issue that could have allowed a malicious miner to induce a chain split. These are Foundation-reported remediation details, not an independent technical audit of Zcash network security.
The Foundation also reported operational continuity during governance turbulence at Electric Coin Company. In a separate January 8, 2026 statement, ZF said that blocks continued to be produced, transactions continued to settle, and users’ funds and privacy remained secure despite disputes at ECC and the departure of much of its development team. Without additional third-party network-health metrics, this remains ZF’s operational assessment rather than independent verification of long-term network resilience.
Infrastructure work included new DNS seeders after ECC-operated seeders stopped responding. In a January 13, 2026 update, ZF said it deployed five new seeders in South Carolina, Oregon, Belgium, Germany and Finland, bringing its total to six when combined with an existing Iowa seeder. The Foundation said the network continued to operate normally, while the seeder issue may have slowed bootstrapping for new clients.
Governance data came from NU7 sentiment polling rather than binding protocol votes. ZF’s February 20, 2026 NU7 ZCAP polling post said 99 of 173 eligible ZCAP members voted, a 57% response rate. The Q1 report added that coinholder participation represented 7.25% of circulating ZEC. In a February 23, 2026 follow-up, ZF said Orchard Quantum Recoverability received 90.5% ZCAP support and 94.6% coinholder support, while Explicit Fees received 83.2% ZCAP support and 87.2% coinholder support.
Other NU7 proposals remained unresolved. ZF said Zcash Shielded Assets, issuance smoothing and Consensus Accounts showed meaningful divergence between ZCAP members and coinholders, requiring further discussion before any recommendation. The Foundation enters Q2 with the SEC review closed, unaudited liquid reserves disclosed and engineering priorities centered on NU7, Z3, Zebra benchmarking and developer coordination, while broader conclusions about governance durability, compliance strength or network resilience require additional independent data.