THORChain formally deployed a liquidity pool for Zcash (ZEC) on Oct. 2, making the pool live after the network churned and nodes began monitoring the Zcash chain. The rollout is a preparatory step for direct, permissionless cross-chain swaps involving native ZEC, including Bitcoin (BTC)-ZEC trading, but those swaps remain the next stage rather than an already enabled feature. THORChain warned that launch liquidity is shallow and should grow over time, creating a risk of significant slippage for early traders. The integration follows months of work on Zcash UTXO handling, RPC logic, oracle support, fee and solvency calculations, and transaction-signing reliability. The announcement did not clarify whether shielded ZEC transactions are supported. Zcash was trading at $1,330-$1,390 with a market capitalization of $23 billion-$24.5 billion, while Bitcoin was at $85,000-$86,500 with a $1.72 trillion market value. ZEC has risen more than 1,000% over 12 months, while BTC remained about 28% below its October 2025 record of roughly $126,000. The rollout also comes amid regulated investment through the Grayscale Zcash ETF, $8.4 million in community-approved grants, testing of Network Upgrade 7 and regulatory scrutiny linked to permissionless routes used to launder stolen funds.