Zipher

Making Zcash accessible. For everyone.

Zipher is a privacy-first Zcash wallet — for humans and AI agents. One Rust engine, two interfaces: a mobile app for everyday use and a headless CLI + MCP server for autonomous agents. Built with Open Wallet Standard (OWS) for multi-chain signing and CipherPay for private payment infrastructure.

Built by Atmosphere Labs.

OWS Hackathon judges: Start with docs/hackathon-ows.md for the submission narrative, tracks, and demo instructions. The relevant code is in rust/crates/{engine,cli,mcp-server}. The mobile app uses the same Rust engine via FFI but is not part of this submission.

---

Why Zcash

Zcash is the only production chain with mathematically proven transaction privacy. Not mixers. Not optional privacy. Shielded by default, enforced by zero-knowledge proofs.

We brought Zcash to the Open Wallet Standard — making it a first-class citizen alongside Ethereum and Solana. Every other OWS wallet and agent uses transparent chains: every transaction, every balance, every counterparty is public. With Zcash on OWS:

• No one sees the balance — not competitors, not chain analysts, not MEV bots
• No one sees the counterparties — who it pays, who pays it
• No one sees the strategy — transaction amounts, timing, and destinations are encrypted on-chain
• Any chain is reachable — NEAR Intents bridges ZEC to 140+ assets, so privacy extends to every destination chain

This isn't a privacy wrapper on top of a transparent chain. It's the real thing — and now it's available in OWS.

---

zipher-cli

Headless, local-first Zcash light wallet for AI agents. No full node. No cloud custody. Keys never leave the machine.

zipher-cli wallet create
zipher-cli --human balance
zipher-cli --human market agent --dry-run --ows-wallet default

• Light client — syncs in minutes, runs on a $5 VPS or Raspberry Pi
• Two-step send — propose (no seed) then confirm (seed required), safe for agent workflows
• Cross-chain swaps — ZEC to any asset via NEAR Intents (BTC, ETH, SOL, USDT, BNB, 140+ tokens)
• Prediction markets — autonomous scan-research-analyze-execute pipeline with Kelly Criterion bet sizing
• x402/MPP payments — pay_url auto-detects x402 or MPP paywalls, pays, retries with credential
• OWS signing — PCZT transactions signed via OWS, EVM transactions for BSC, all from one seed
• Spending policy — per-tx limits, daily caps, allowlist, rate limiting, approval thresholds
• Audit log — every spend recorded with timestamps, context IDs, and error tracking
• Daemon mode — background sync with IPC socket, kill switch to zeroize seed in memory
• Prepaid sessions — deposit ZEC once via CipherPay, get a bearer token for instant API calls
• Pay-per-call API server — serve command starts an HTTP server gating agent tools behind x402 micropayments

MCP Server — 22 Tools for LLM Orchestration

The MCP server exposes the full agent toolkit over stdio, compatible with Claude, Cursor, and any MCP client. See mcp-config.example.json for a ready-to-paste config and docs/mcp-system-prompt.md for multi-agent orchestration instructions.

Domain	Tools
Wallet	wallet_status, get_balance, validate_address, sync_status, get_transactions
Send	propose_send, confirm_send, shield_funds
Payments	pay_x402, pay_url
Swaps	swap_tokens, swap_quote, swap_execute, swap_status
Sessions	session_open, session_request, session_list, session_close
Market Agent	market_scan, market_research, market_analyze, market_quote

The server holds the seed in memory — tools never accept seed as an argument. Policy engine enforces spending limits on every transaction.

Prediction Market Agent

The agent follows a structured pipeline, whether invoked from CLI or orchestrated by an LLM via MCP:

  Scan           Research         Analyze          Execute
  ─────          ────────         ───────          ───────
  Fetch markets  Search news      Kelly Criterion  ZEC → USDT swap
  Rank by        via Firecrawl    Fractional Kelly BNB gas funding
  uncertainty    Build context    Edge detection   ERC-20 approve
  Filter open    for LLM          EV calculation   Place bet via Myriad

Agent roles in the MCP flow:

• News Agent (market_research) — fetches web data via Firecrawl search API. When FIRECRAWL_API_KEY is set, pulls real news and analysis. Falls back to market data when unavailable.
• Analysis Agent (market_analyze) — takes the LLM's probability estimate and confidence, applies fractional Kelly Criterion (quarter to half Kelly), calculates edge, expected value, and recommended bet size. Hard risk cap via max_bet_usdt.
• Trading Agent (market_scan, market_quote, swap_execute) — handles market discovery, quote fetching, cross-chain swaps (ZEC → USDT via NEAR Intents), and EVM transaction construction for Myriad on BNB Chain.
• Risk Agent (wallet_status, policy engine, audit log) — spending policy enforces per-tx limits, daily caps, and rate limiting. Every transaction is logged. The LLM can check balance and policy before committing.

CLI agent mode runs the full pipeline autonomously with heuristic probability estimation. MCP mode lets the LLM read the research and form its own probability estimate — a stronger approach because the LLM brings world knowledge.

CipherPay — Private Payment Infrastructure

CipherPay is the merchant and verification side of the payment stack. It verifies shielded Zcash payments using Orchard trial decryption — privacy for the payer, certainty for the payee.

• @cipherpay/x402 — Express middleware to gate any API behind x402/MPP micropayments with Zcash
• @cipherpay/mcp — MCP server with 8 tools for AI-driven payment verification

MCP tools:

Tool	What it does
create_invoice	Create a Zcash payment invoice with ZIP-321 URI
get_invoice_status	Check if an invoice has been paid (pending/detected/confirmed)
verify_payment	Verify a shielded ZEC payment by txid — for x402/MPP resource servers
open_session	Open a prepaid session with deposit txid, get bearer token
get_session_status	Check session balance and status
close_session	Close session, get usage summary
get_product_info	Get product details and pricing
get_exchange_rates	Current ZEC/fiat rates (USD, EUR, BRL, GBP, etc.)

The full loop: An agent pays for an API via pay_url (zipher side). The API server calls verify_payment (CipherPay side) to confirm the shielded ZEC payment landed. No accounts, no API keys, no KYC — just cryptographic proof of payment.

---

Zipher Mobile

Fast, shielded Zcash wallet built for simplicity and privacy. Forked from YWallet by Hanh Huynh Huu — redesigned with a modern UI, secure architecture, and developer-friendly features.

• Shielded by Default — sends from shielded pool only, with one-tap shielding for transparent funds
• Cross-Chain Swaps — swap ZEC to BTC, ETH, SOL and more via NEAR Intents
• Secure Seed Storage — seeds in iOS Keychain / Android Keystore, keys derived in RAM, wiped on close
• Multi-Wallet — manage multiple wallets from a single app, with optional watch-only import
• Testnet Mode — full testnet with integrated faucet, built for developers

Requirements: iOS 16.4+ / Android 7.0+

---

Architecture

rust/crates/
├── engine/              # Shared wallet engine (16 modules)
│   ├── wallet.rs        # Wallet lifecycle, key derivation, open/close
│   ├── sync.rs          # lightwalletd sync (Sapling + Orchard)
│   ├── send.rs          # Transaction construction, PCZT creation
│   ├── myriad.rs        # Myriad API, Kelly Criterion, EVM tx building
│   ├── research.rs      # Firecrawl web search, news agent
│   ├── swap.rs          # NEAR Intents cross-chain swaps
│   ├── evm_pay.rs       # Multi-chain EVM x402 detection, cross-chain funding
│   ├── x402.rs          # x402 payment protocol
│   ├── mpp.rs           # MPP payment protocol
│   ├── payment.rs       # Protocol auto-detection (x402 vs MPP)
│   ├── session.rs       # CipherPay prepaid sessions
│   ├── policy.rs        # Spending policy engine
│   ├── audit.rs         # Append-only audit log
│   ├── vault.rs         # AES-256-GCM encrypted seed storage
│   ├── query.rs         # Balance, addresses, transactions, viewing keys
│   └── types.rs         # Shared types
│
├── cli/src/             # zipher-cli binary (10 modules)
│   ├── main.rs          # CLI definitions, config, dispatch
│   ├── helpers.rs       # Sapling params, vault, seed, sync helpers
│   ├── wallet.rs        # Wallet/sync/balance/send commands
│   ├── payment.rs       # x402 + pay_url commands
│   ├── swap.rs          # Cross-chain swap commands
│   ├── session.rs       # CipherPay session commands
│   ├── policy.rs        # Policy + audit commands
│   ├── daemon.rs        # Background sync daemon with IPC
│   ├── market.rs        # Prediction market commands + OWS signing
│   └── serve.rs         # Pay-per-call HTTP API with x402 gating
│
└── mcp-server/          # MCP server binary (22 tools)
    └── main.rs          # Tool definitions, server setup

rust/src/                # Flutter Rust Bridge (mobile app FFI)

The engine crate is the single source of truth for wallet logic. Every consumer — mobile app, CLI, MCP server — uses the same Rust code for key derivation, proof generation, and transaction construction.

Built With

• Open Wallet Standard (OWS) — multi-chain wallet and signing (Zcash PCZT + EVM)
• librustzcash — Zcash protocol libraries and light client SDK
• rmcp — Model Context Protocol server SDK
• NEAR Intents — cross-chain swap infrastructure
• Myriad Markets — prediction markets on BNB Chain
• Firecrawl — web search and scraping API
• CipherPay — Zcash payment infrastructure (@cipherpay/x402 middleware, @cipherpay/mcp server)
• Flutter — mobile UI (iOS & Android)

Privacy

• No data collection, no analytics, no tracking
• All data recoverable from seed phrase
• Customizable lightwalletd server URL
• Shielded pool used by default for all operations
• Seeds in platform secure storage, keys derived in RAM, wiped on close

Default servers powered by CipherScan infrastructure.

Ecosystem

Project	Role	Status
Zipher	The Wallet — financial privacy, user-friendly	Beta
zipher-cli	The Agent Wallet — headless, MCP + OWS	Alpha
zipher-mcp-server	LLM orchestration — 22 tools for autonomous agents	Alpha
CipherScan	The Explorer — mainnet and testnet	Live
CipherPay	The Infrastructure — invoices, x402 verify, sessions	Live

License

MIT