ETH to ZEC: Swap Ethereum for Zcash Without KYC

This pair takes ether on Ethereum mainnet, the network your wallet may label simply as Ethereum. ETH held on Base, Arbitrum, Optimism or another rollup uses the same 0x address format, yet it lives on a separate chain; if you push it to this deposit address from there, it is not seen on mainnet. Move it back to mainnet in your wallet first, or pick a pair for that network if the box lists one.

WETH is a different case. Wrapped ether is an ERC-20 token, not the coin itself, and a deposit address expecting plain ETH cannot read a token transfer. Unwrap it to ETH in your wallet, which costs one small transaction, and then send.

One more trap: the Max button. When you send your full balance, the wallet subtracts the gas from it, so less ETH arrives than the box asked for. Enter the precise ETH figure from the box by hand, leaving some ether in the wallet to cover gas.

People search for an ETH to Zcash bridge, but Ethereum and Zcash share no native bridge. Bridges between those chains usually hand out a wrapped ZEC token on Ethereum: a 0x token that is only a claim on coins someone else keeps in reserve. It never touches the Zcash chain, and it cannot be shielded.

A swap works differently. Your ETH goes to a deposit address on Ethereum, the trade is priced with aggregated liquidity from leading crypto markets, and real ZEC is paid out on the Zcash blockchain to an address in your own Zcash wallet. Nothing stays wrapped, and you are left holding the actual coin, which is what makes shielding possible afterwards.

The rate keeps floating until Ethereum has confirmed your deposit, and the quoted ZEC already excludes the service fee. Your only outside cost on the way in is the gas your wallet charges to send the ETH.

Paste a transparent address for the payout. In Zcash those start with t1, for a normal one-key address, or t3, for a script address. The unified u1 address that Zodl (formerly Zashi), Zkool and Zingo put on top of the receive tab will be rejected, and so will an older zs address; look for the option that reveals the transparent one.

Once it lands, the ZEC is in your transparent balance and visible to anyone checking that t-address on Blockchair. Blocks arrive about every 75 seconds, and the payout reaches its confirmations in about 10 to 20 minutes. After that, tap shield in the wallet. That moves the balance into the shielded pool in a single transaction, and from then on, payments out of it no longer expose who sent what to whom.

For the cleanest result, use a t-address with no history, shield the whole payout and give it some time in the pool before spending it on.

Ethereum gas is the variable part. A plain ETH transfer is the cheapest kind of transaction on Ethereum, but the price per unit of gas rises and falls with demand, so the same deposit can cost noticeably more at a busy hour. MetaMask, Rabby and Ledger Live quote it in ETH before you confirm. Your wallet adds it on top of the ETH being sent.

Zcash has no gas market of the Ethereum kind. Since the ZIP 317 fee rules, wallets charge a small fee worked out from how many inputs and outputs a transaction has, so it barely changes with network traffic and is normally a tiny fraction of a ZEC. You will meet it when you shield the payout or spend it later; the transfer that brings the ZEC to you is already covered by the quote.

In practice, that means the timing of your ETH deposit matters for cost far more than anything on the Zcash side.

The usual reason for this swap follows from the second row. An Ethereum address is an open book, and holders who want part of their funds out of view move that part to a chain that can hide it. Once shielded, ZEC gives you that, while ETH stays the better tool for anything that needs a smart contract.

Treat the Ethereum sender field seriously, because it doubles as your refund address: a failed swap returns the ETH to exactly that sender address you entered. Fill it with a MetaMask, Rabby or Ledger account of your own. Withdrawals from a trading platform leave from a pooled hot wallet, and ether sent back to one of those can easily go uncredited.

The status page attached to your swap ID shows whether the deposit has been detected, confirmed and paid out. A deposit stuck as pending in your wallet almost always had its gas set too low; most wallets offer a speed-up button that resends it with a higher fee. When Etherscan marks your deposit Success but the status page has stood still for ages, reach support@ghostswap.io by email with the swap ID plus that Ethereum transaction hash. Avoid a second payment to the same address in the meantime.