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This chart tracks two complementary metrics that reveal different aspects of Zcash's economic activity. Total transfer volume shows the aggregate value of all transactions settled on the network—essentially how much ZEC is moving around each day. Median amount transferred shows the typical transaction size, which is more representative of normal user behavior because it isn't skewed by outliers like exchange consolidations or large institutional transfers.

Both metrics capture value moving across all chain value pools in different ways:

**Transparent transfers**: Value moving between public addresses where amounts are visible on the blockchain.

**Shielding operations**: Funds moving from the transparent pool into one of the privacy-preserving shielded pools (Sprout, Sapling, or Orchard).

**Deshielding operations**: Funds moving from shielded pools back to transparent addresses, often to interact with exchanges or services that don't support shielded addresses.

**Shielded-to-shielded transfers**: Fully private transfers that stay entirely within shielded pools, offering the strongest privacy since no amounts ever touch the transparent pool.


Total transfer volume and typical transaction size across all chain value pools

Zcash: Total Transfer Volume and Median Amount Transferred

Median fees are tracked separately across Zcash's three main chain value pools, each representing different levels of privacy and computational requirements:

- Transparent: Functions like Bitcoin with publicly visible addresses and amounts, requiring only basic cryptographic verification to validate transactions.

- Sapling: Uses zero-knowledge proofs called Groth16 to hide transaction details, requiring validators to verify mathematical proofs that demonstrate transactions are valid without revealing amounts or participants.

- Orchard: The latest and most private protocol using Halo2 proofs, offering the strongest privacy guarantees through more sophisticated cryptography that hides all transaction metadata while remaining efficient to validate.

The median metric shows the typical fee paid by most users rather than being skewed by outliers. Since April 2023, fees follow the ZIP 317 standard where each transaction costs 5,000 zatoshis (0.00005 ZEC) per logical action with a minimum of two actions.

Median transaction fee for different value pools

Zcash: Median Fee

Network REV (Real Economic Value) measures user demand to transact on the Zcash blockchain through the fees paid for transaction execution. Like Bitcoin, Zcash has no out-of-protocol tips or MEV, meaning transaction fees constitute the entire Network REV. 

What distinguishes Zcash is its support for both transparent transactions (similar to Bitcoin) and shielded transactions that use advanced cryptography to preserve user privacy. The fee structure must account for both types of operations, as shielded transactions require significantly more computational resources to validate.

Zcash's fee structure underwent a major evolution with the implementation of ZIP 317 in April 2023 (version 5.5.0). Prior to this, fees were calculated based on transaction size in bytes, similar to Bitcoin. The new model introduced a more sophisticated approach where fees are based on the number of operations within a transaction—such as sending funds, receiving funds, or moving value between transparent and shielded pools. Each operation costs 5,000 zatoshis (0.00005 ZEC), with a minimum fee of 10,000 zatoshis for any transaction. This change made fees more predictable and fairly reflected the actual computational work required to process different transaction types. The implementation was progressively strengthened through mid-2023, with version 6.0.0 (September 2023) requiring all transactions to pay these conventional fees, eliminating the previous allowance for discounted transactions.

Transaction fees constitute the Network REV

Zcash: Network REV (Real Economic Value)

Transaction fees are paid by users to miners for processing and validating their transactions on the blockchain. In Zcash, fees vary across different chain value pools because each pool requires different levels of computational work to validate. Since April 2023, fees follow the ZIP 317 standard where each transaction costs 5,000 zatoshis (0.00005 ZEC) per logical action with a minimum of two actions, making fees predictable and proportional to the computational work required.

**Transparent**: The public pool that works like Bitcoin, where addresses and amounts are visible. These transactions require only basic cryptographic verification, typically resulting in the lowest fees.

**Sprout**: Zcash's original privacy protocol from October 2016. Sprout transactions used complex zero-knowledge proofs that required substantial computational resources to validate, though this pool is now deprecated and stopped accepting new funds in November 2020.

**Sapling**: The efficient privacy protocol from October 2018 using Groth16 zero-knowledge proofs. Sapling transactions hide amounts and addresses while being efficient enough for mobile wallets to create and for validators to verify.

**Orchard**: The latest privacy protocol activated in May 2022, using advanced Halo2 proofs that provide the strongest privacy guarantees. Despite more sophisticated cryptography, Orchard remains efficient to validate.

**Mixed Sapling + Orchard**: Some transactions combine both Sapling and Orchard components in a single transaction, allowing users to move or consolidate funds across these two shielded pools simultaneously. These mixed transactions are enabled by the v5 transaction format introduced with Orchard.


Transaction fees collected across each chain value pool

Zcash: Fees Breakdown

Miner rewards represent the total earnings paid to miners for securing the Zcash network, combining two components: the block subsidy (newly minted ZEC created with each block) and transaction fees paid by users. This chart shows only what miners actually receive, excluding protocol-mandated funding distributions that go to development organizations.

The block subsidy started at 12.5 ZEC and follows Bitcoin's halving schedule, decreasing by half approximately every four years. The first halving occurred at block 840,000, reducing rewards to 6.25 ZEC, with the second halving at block 2,520,000 bringing it down to 3.125 ZEC. However, miners haven't always received the full subsidy—different eras allocated portions to other recipients:

**Founders Reward Era** (blocks 1-850,000): Miners received 80% of the block subsidy, with 20% going to founders.

**Transition Era** (blocks 850,001-1,046,399): Miners received 100% of the block subsidy.

**Canopy Era** (blocks 1,046,400-2,726,399): Miners received 80%, with funding streams allocating 7% to the Electric Coin Company, 5% to the Zcash Foundation, and 8% to Major Grants.

**NU6 Era** (blocks 2,726,400+): Miners receive 80%, with 8% to Zcash Community Grants and 12% temporarily to the Lockbox development fund.

Transaction fees vary based on network activity and are added to the block subsidy, though they typically represent a small fraction of total miner revenue compared to the block subsidy itself.

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Zcash: Fees Breakdown

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