The Zcash Foundation has opened a June 2026 expansion of the Zcash Community Advisory Panel, inviting eligible community members to volunteer before upcoming governance activity. The announcement was posted on the Zcash Community Forum on June 2, 2026, and should be read as a membership expansion, not a change to ZCAP’s formal authority or protocol-development powers.
ZCAP’s role is advisory. The panel provides feedback on important Zcash topics, elects community-selected members of the Zcash Community Grants committee, helps inform Zcash priorities and gauges community sentiment on decisions and initiatives. The June expansion comes before the ZCG election and NU7 sentiment polling, which the foundation said opens on June 11.
Eligibility and Deadline Define the Immediate Scope
The Zcash Foundation said eligibility is designed to be objective and Sybil-resistant, covering contributors to Zcash node projects, ZIP authors, significant Zcash software developers, qualifying grant recipients, current or former ZCG committee members and active forum members with specific participation badges. The deadline to be added for the upcoming poll is Monday, June 8, while later applicants may be eligible for a future polling cycle.
The announcement follows a separate NU7 polling thread that proposed running sentiment polling through both ZCAP and coinholders. That earlier thread said coinholders would be able to vote directly from the Zodl wallet for the first time, with Zodl plus Keystone support for hardware-wallet users.
Broader Zcash Context Remains Separate
The ZCAP expansion lands during a period of heavy Zcash infrastructure activity, but those developments should be treated separately from the governance-panel update. ZODL said in March that it had raised more than $25 million in seed funding and that Zodl had facilitated more than $600 million in ZEC swaps since October 2025, while Flexa’s Zashi integration allows shielded ZEC spending at thousands of U.S. retail locations.
Protocol maintenance is also a separate track. On June 3, the Zcash Foundation said Zebra 4.5.3 temporarily disabled Orchard actions after a critical Orchard Action circuit soundness bug, while Zebra 5.0.0 activated NU6.2 to re-enable Orchard with a corrected circuit. The foundation said there was no known exploitation and no evidence of unauthorized value creation.
Regulatory and market-access developments add background but do not change ZCAP’s mandate. The Zcash Foundation said in January that the SEC concluded its review without recommending enforcement action, and Grayscale’s preliminary S-3 filing says the sponsor intends to rename Grayscale Zcash Trust as Grayscale Zcash Trust ETF if the registration statement becomes effective and the shares list on NYSE Arca.
For now, the confirmed governance development is narrow: Zcash Foundation is expanding ZCAP membership ahead of the June ZCG election and NU7 sentiment polling. Claims about protocol direction, wallet adoption, regulatory clarity or ETF approval should remain separate unless tied to their own official sources and timelines.