Zwap
swap across chains instantly, safely without drama
Created on 4th December 2025
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Zwap
swap across chains instantly, safely without drama
The problem Zwap solves
the problem
most people still move assets across chains using bridges that take custody of their funds. this means sending tokens into a giant shared pool and hoping the system doesn’t get hacked. history shows otherwise, with billions lost in bridge failures. users want cross-chain freedom, but not at the cost of losing everything.
the experience gap
even when bridges don’t fail, the flow feels outdated. every chain has a different UI. addresses must be copied by hand. txids must be tracked manually. confirmations are unpredictable. one wrong input can send funds to nowhere. for new users, it’s intimidating. for advanced users, it’s simply inefficient.
the privacy problem
current bridges expose every move a user makes. anyone can see where funds came from, where they went, and how much moved. this reveals trading intent, wallet history, and personal financial patterns. users who care about safety, strategy, or anonymity have no protection at all.
the trust problem
bridges depend on validators, multisigs, or custodians behaving correctly. users are forced to trust an opaque system that can break silently. the security is social, not cryptographic. the model is fragile by design, and users deserve something safer.
Challenges I ran into
cash wallet and input friction
there is no native browser wallet for zcash, which made sending shielded transactions cumbersome. users could not easily input long z-addresses or track txids, creating friction that would break the flow of a demo-ready app.
simplifying user interaction
to solve this, i leveraged ZIP-321 to encode payment information into QR codes. a nonce attached to the memo field allowed the backend to monitor deposits automatically, removing the need for manual input and ensuring a smooth, frictionless experience.
cross-chain consistency and double-spend prevention
initial approaches using nonces or merkle trees in the solana program were too heavy, expensive, or not scalable. i redesigned the relayer logic to handle verification off-chain while keeping the solana program minimal and efficient.
tooling and infrastructure limitations
full zcash nodes are heavy, slow, and poorly documented, making proof generation and tracking spendable notes challenging. i combined offline computations using zcash primitives with streamlined relayer polling to achieve fast, demo-ready transactions while preserving privacy guarantees.
Tracks Applied (1)
Cross-Chain Privacy Solutions
Helius
Technologies used
Cheer Project
Cheering for a project means supporting a project you like with as little as 0.0025 ETH. Right now, you can Cheer using ETH on Arbitrum, Optimism and Base.