Zecnero (ZMR): shielded-only privacy with CPU mining and no premine

[KaitoArisaka]

Zecnero (ZMR) is a privacy coin where every payment is shielded. It's built from Zcash's Zebra node, keeps Zcash's zero-knowledge shielded pools, and runs on RandomX-Zecnero, a RandomX variant that any desktop CPU can mine. It launched with no premine and no sale.

Private by default, with no way to opt out
Zcash lets people choose between transparent and shielded payments, and much of its history sits on transparent addresses. Zecnero removes that choice. Every payment goes through the shielded pool. The only transparent outputs are fresh mining rewards, and the protocol forces those to be shielded before they can be spent. Mainnet enforces this from block 1.

Hidden among every note, instead of a ring of 16
Monero hides each payment among 15 decoys in a ring of 16. Zecnero uses zero-knowledge proofs, so a payment is hidden among every note in the shielded pool. Sender, receiver and amount stay private on-chain.

Mined by ordinary computers
Zcash is mined by ASICs. Zecnero moves mining back to CPUs with a RandomX variant that has its own salt, so an ordinary PC can take part from the first block and no single hardware maker can capture the chain.

A fair launch you can check
No premine and no private sale. Coins only come from mining. The one allocation is a 3% founder stream that ends at the first halving, about 1.5% of total supply. It's paid to a public 2-of-3 multisig for development and infrastructure, and its spending is posted publicly.

Zecnero at a glance

• Privacy: shielded-only, zero-knowledge proofs (Sapling and Orchard)
• Mining: RandomX-Zecnero (rx/zecnero), CPU, XMRig
• Blocks: 75 seconds, 6.25 ZMR reward, halving every 1,680,000 blocks
• Supply: 20,999,993.5652 ZMR, no tail emission
• Launch: no premine, no sale
• Status: public testnet since September 24, 2026, Mainnet planned for Q4 2026

Help make it the strongest privacy coin it can be
Zecnero is still on testnet, so there's time to shape it. I'd like to hear from privacy people, miners and cryptographers on these questions:

• Should Mainnet be Orchard-only from block 1, giving one shielded pool with no trusted setup?
• Should mining rewards be shielded from the start?
• Dandelion++, built-in Tor or I2P for relay privacy?
• What would you audit first before Mainnet?

You can mine the testnet with one command: zecnero.org/mine
Spec and source: protocol PDF · gitlab.com/zecnero

Kaito Arisaka, Zecnero