Zcash zcashd End of Life: Migrate to Zebrad RPC

The Zcash ecosystem is sunsetting zcashd. It will not support the NU6.3 upgrade and halts automatically on July 18th, 2026 at block height 3,417,100.

In line with official Zcash recommendations, Tatum is decommissioning its zcashd-based infrastructure and switching all Zcash gateway traffic to Zebrad, the new standard Zcash node implementation. Tatum has offered Zebrad-powered endpoints since January 2026, so the implementation serving your requests after the cutover is already battle-tested on our infrastructure.

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Official references: zcashd End of Life · zcashd Deprecation & Migration

Key Changes & Impact

Once zcashd reaches its End-of-Support halt at block height 3,417,100, zcashd nodes will stop following the chain entirely. To ensure uninterrupted service, Tatum is retiring all zcashd nodes and repointing the standard Zcash gateway URLs to Zebrad.

Your endpoint URLs are not changing. The standard gateway URLs below will remain the canonical Zcash endpoints and will be served by Zebrad nodes as of July 18, 2026:

Network	Gateway URL
Zcash Mainnet	`https://zcash-mainnet.gateway.tatum.io`
Zcash Testnet	`https://zcash-testnet.gateway.tatum.io`

Zebrad fully supports NU6.3. According to the official zcashd deprecation guidance, Zebrad or Zallet serve as a drop-in replacement for some of zcashd's JSON-RPC methods, while others may require modified usage and some will not be supported. Before the cutover, verify that the specific methods your application calls are supported. The Zcash project maintains a method-by-method compatibility table covering Zebrad and Zallet support status.

REST Interface Removal

The zcashd REST interface is not available in Zebrad. The following REST endpoints are being decommissioned:

https://zcash-mainnet.gateway.tatum.io/rest
https://zcash-testnet.gateway.tatum.io/rest

Applications relying on REST endpoints must migrate their integrations to the Zebrad JSON-RPC interface before July 18, 2026.

Wallet Functionality

If your application depends on the zcashd built-in wallet, note that Zebrad does not include wallet functionality. The Zcash project recommends testing Zallet as the wallet replacement.

If You Are Using the Zebrad-Specific URLs

Customers who adopted the Zebrad endpoints introduced in January 2026 (https://zcash-mainnet-zebrad.gateway.tatum.io and https://zcash-testnet-zebrad.gateway.tatum.io) are unaffected by the backend switch. These URLs will continue to work for a transition period, but we recommend updating your configuration to the standard zcash-mainnet / zcash-testnet URLs above, which are the long-term canonical endpoints.

Timeline

July 18th, 2026 (block height 3,417,100): zcashd End-of-Support halt. zcashd nodes stop following the chain.
July 18th, 2026: Tatum retires all zcashd nodes. Standard Zcash gateway URLs are served exclusively by Zebrad. The REST interface is decommissioned.
Later in 2026: The zcash-###-zebrad subdomains will be retired. The exact retirement date will be announced in a follow-up changelog.

Recommended Action

If you use the standard URLs with JSON-RPC: check your methods against the RPC compatibility table. No URL change needed.
If you use the REST interface: migrate to the Zebrad JSON-RPC interface before July 18, 2026.
If you use the -zebrad subdomains: plan to switch to the standard zcash-mainnet / zcash-testnet URLs during the transition period.
If you rely on the zcashd built-in wallet: evaluate Zallet as a replacement.