Shielding ZelNode rewards with ZELmate

Shielding and why it's necessary

For Zcash and Zcash-forked coins (like ZelCash), freshly minted (coinbase) coins must be shielded to make them spendable. Your ZelNode rewards are received by you as coinbase coin, as they are sent to you directly from each block find. The shielding action will send your coinbase coin to a private address (Z-address) of your choosing, which will shield them. From the Z-address, you can send the shielded coins back to a transparent address (T-address) of your choosing, like your light ZelCash address in ZelCore, and your rewards are now spendable and can Tx anywhere.

This rewards distribution method was selected as it is a completely trustless system; from the moment of the block find, you as the node operator are always in control of your rewards without having to trust an intermediary. For example, there are projects that will shield your rewards for you, but first your rewards must be sent to a specific address that you do not control, the shielding is performed, and the coin is distributed back to you. This method is highly centralized and needing to trust a 3rd party goes against the ethos of the Zel Project. In the future, ZelCore will continually add features to make shielding easier for the operator.

Coinbase coins require 100 confirmations from block find to mature. The shielding process will take 1 confirm, and then you can send your rewards to an address of your choosing, which will take another 2 confirms.

Shield Your Coinbase Rewards

Launch ZELmate and allow to fully sync.

If you have not created a Z-address for shielding, go to Own Addresses and select New Z(Private) Sapling Address. You can optionally name the address (e.g. Shielding Address, etc.).

Go to ZelNodestab and select Shield ZelNode(s) Reward(s) button.

Confirm that you wish to shield. You can select any Z-address available in your wallet.

ZELmate will shield up to 100 UTXOs.

If there are many rewards payments, you will need to perform this process multiple times.

Shielding creates a transaction to your Z-address (default fee of 0.0001 ZelCash) and needs 1 confirmation before you can spend the coins.

Screenshot 1: Shows the shielding transaction is not confirmed.

Screenshot 2: Shows the shielding transaction is confirmed and the coins are spendable.

You can now send your rewards to a T-address of your choice, such as your ZelCore lite address. Go to Send cash tab, select the shielding Z-address, enter in the transaction details and select the Send button.