THORChain Launches a Zcash Pool: Native ZEC Swaps Without Wrapping, but Liquidity Is Still Shallow

What went live on October 2

On October 2, THORChain completed a node rotation (churn) and opened its Zcash pool. Every node on the network now watches the Zcash blockchain, and liquidity providers can deposit into the pool. Trading is not live yet: the project calls it the next step and has not given a date.

The announcement came with a warning. According to THORChain, liquidity is shallow for now and will grow over time, so users should trade with caution in the early days. As crypto.news notes, no pool depth or deposit figures were published on launch day.

THORChain is a decentralized network for swaps between blockchains. A user sends a coin to a network vault address and receives the native coin of another chain on the other side: real BTC, not a wrapped token on Ethereum. There is no account and no verification, and the vaults are controlled jointly by the nodes. For ZEC holders, this means another way to swap the coin outside exchanges, which keep delisting Zcash.

How THORChain got to Zcash

The integration took months. Based on the THORChain blog and crypto.news, the timeline looks like this:

The September fixes dealt with subtle problems: nodes that saw different tips of the Zcash chain built the transaction differently, so the joint signature failed. For a network where a group of nodes controls the vault, that is critical.

Transparent or shielded addresses

This is the key privacy question, and there is no official answer yet. The pool announcement did not say whether a swap can send ZEC to a shielded address or receive coins from one. Users asked directly under the project's post, but according to CryptoTimes the scope is still unclear.

The integration history offers a hint. Back in a 2021 grant proposal, the team promised guaranteed support for swaps from and to transparent addresses, with shielded addresses only after separate testing. Unified u1 addresses were listed as a later step. Networks like this usually start with the transparent side: it works like Bitcoin and is easier for the nodes to handle.

In practice, a THORChain swap will most likely be visible on-chain: the address and amount are public, as with a regular BTC transfer. Privacy comes at the next step, when you move the coins into the shielded pool with your own wallet. Swapping ZEC on our crypto exchange works the same way: the coins arrive at a transparent address, and you shield them yourself. We explained in a separate guide how a transparent Zcash address differs from a shielded one and which wallets can shield coins.

Shallow pool and slippage

In THORChain pools, the price depends on pool depth. The less ZEC and RUNE a pool holds, the more each large swap moves the rate. While the pool is still gathering liquidity, even a mid-sized swap can execute at a noticeably worse price than on an exchange. That is exactly what the "trade with caution in the early days" warning is about.

The pool price also floats on its own: other trades move it between the moment you send coins and the moment the swap executes. You can set a tolerance, but if the rate moves past it, the swap is cancelled and the coins come back minus fees. By contrast, if you exchange USDT TRC20 to Zcash at a fixed rate, the amount you see in the form is the amount you receive. We covered how it works and when to choose a fixed rate for a crypto exchange in a separate article.

Monero is next in line

Zcash came first, but THORChain has talked about Monero for a long time. The developers showed a live demo of XMR swaps in May 2026, and the September 17 blog post said Monero would follow right after Zcash. It is promised as an openly labelled beta with a soft launch: the code is nearly ready, and the node churn was the only blocker.

For the privacy coin market, this may matter more than the ZEC pool. Monero is delisted from exchanges even more aggressively, and it has almost no native venues without an intermediary.

Cross-chain swaps under pressure

The launch coincided with an awkward story for THORChain. Bitget was hacked on September 24, and a few days later a wallet linked to the attack ran 27 swaps through THORChain, converting about 2,390 ETH into 75.2 BTC, roughly $6.3 million. Bitget CEO Gracy Chen publicly asked THORChain to block the attacker's addresses. THORChain refused: the network does not block addresses, just as Bitcoin and Ethereum do not.

This is an old complaint about swap protocols without verification. Regulators see them as a channel for stolen funds, and every such case adds pressure on the whole industry. Privacy coins are under the same pressure: Kraken closed XMR and ZEC withdrawals for UAE clients on September 14 and sold remaining balances from September 15 to 25. The THORChain ZEC pool arrives against this backdrop, and the more popular privacy coin swaps become, the more questions they will face.

What else is happening with Zcash

On October 2, ZEC traded at around $1,320 to $1,370 depending on the source. A major network upgrade is also underway: the community backed it in a vote (keeping halvings won 98.9% by ZEC weight), NU7 activates on testnet on October 6, and mainnet is targeted for November 5. Read what changes and why owners of old wallets should act before November in our breakdown of the Zcash NU7 upgrade and the Sprout pool freeze.

What this means for ZEC holders

• There will be one more place to swap Zcash for native coins of other chains without an account.
• Trading is not live yet, and when it opens the pool will be shallow: a large swap in the first weeks may execute at a poor price.
• Plan for transparent addresses: THORChain has promised nothing about shielded ones, so you will shield coins with your own wallet.
• THORChain has no fixed rate: the result depends on pool depth and the market at the time of the swap.

If you want to know the amount upfront, it is simpler to exchange Bitcoin to Zcash without registration on VertEXchange: the rate is shown in the form, ZEC arrives at your transparent address, and you can shield it in your own wallet.