Learn · 01
2 min read
Transparent vs shielded
Why some ZEC is as public as Bitcoin and some is encrypted end to end.
Zcash has two kinds of balance. Transparent addresses (starting with t1 or t3) work like Bitcoin: the sender, receiver and amount of every payment are public on the blockchain, forever.
Shielded payments are encrypted. The chain stores an encrypted note and a zero-knowledge proof. Nobody else can see who paid whom or how much, yet every node can still check that the payment is valid and no ZEC was created from nothing.
Shielded funds live in shielded pools. Zcash has added new pools over the years (Sprout, Sapling, Orchard and later upgrades), and modern wallets handle them for you.
Moving between the two worlds is visible at the boundary. Shielding (transparent → shielded) shows the amount going in; deshielding shows the amount coming out. Privacy is strongest when a payment stays shielded on both sides.