What is a shielded address?
A shielded address is a Zcash address whose funds live in a shielded pool instead of the transparent ledger. Transactions between shielded addresses hide three things that transparent chains publish by default: the sender, the receiver, and the amount. The hiding is done with zk-SNARK proofs, and a nullifier prevents the same funds from being spent twice without revealing which note was spent.
How it differs from a mixer
A mixer such as Tornado Cash is a contract on an otherwise transparent chain: deposits and withdrawals remain visible, and only the link between them is hidden. A shielded pool moves privacy into the protocol itself. Internal transfers publish no graph at all. The distinction matters to investigators: with mixers, both edges stay observable; with shielded pools, only the entry (transparent to shielded) and exit (shielded to transparent) transactions are visible.
Selective disclosure
Shielded addresses are not a permanent wall. The holder can issue a viewing key to grant a third party, an exchange, auditor, or investigator, read-only visibility of their own shielded transactions while keeping spending control. This opt-in compliance mechanism has no Monero equivalent and is the main reason Zcash privacy is described as provable and selectively disclosable.
Why it matters for safety
According to public reporting, the share of ZEC supply held in shielded pools rose from roughly 11% to about 30% during 2025, so stolen-fund tracing cases increasingly encounter shielded flows. The practical takeaway: the entry transaction into a shielded pool is the victim’s last fully public evidence, and the exit, especially into a centralized exchange with KYC, is where investigations regain traction.