Shielded vs Transparent Zcash: What's the Difference?

June 11, 2026

Zcash supports two kinds of addresses, and the difference matters for both privacy and tracking.

Transparent (t-addresses)

Work like Bitcoin: sender, receiver and amount are public. A balance can be read from the chain.

Shielded (z-addresses)

Use zero-knowledge proofs (zk-SNARKs) to encrypt sender, receiver and amount. Balances cannot be read publicly — that’s the privacy guarantee.

What this means for tracking

Because shielded balances are private, the reliable way to track your ZEC is to record your own transactions in a local tool, not to scrape an address.

Zcash Portfolio Tracker does exactly that, privately on your PC. Download it free.