Zcash cryptocurrency — one out of many, or worth drawing attention?

Identification: ZEC.
Website: z.cash.
Date of official presentation: October 28, 2016.

Basic parameters of Zcash, description of cryptocurrency

The issue of Zcash is carried out using mining. The basis of cryptocurrency is blockchain technology, implemented regardless of Bitcoin, with the use of developments of the founders. The source code is distributed under a free software license. Project page on Github.

The planned total volume of Zcash coins (number of coins) is 21 million. Ten percent of proceeds will be withdrawn in favor of the company's founders, investors, employees, and consultants. This is the so-called "founders reward", which will be invested in the further improvement of technology, infrastructure, the scientific basis of the project, as well as and investors’ encouragement.

Zcash did not appear yesterday

The history of Zcash began several years before the official launch of the cryptocurrency. In 2013, cryptographers developed the Zerocoin protocol, which corrected the weaknesses of transactions in Bitcoin technology — namely, the ability to identify the sender and the recipient.

Unfortunately, they didn’t agree to cooperate with the developers of the first digital currency, and Zerocoin walked its own path, regardless of Bitcoin. Based on this protocol,  there appeared a new cryptocurrency — Moneta. An improved version of Zerocoin called Zerocash was developed more recently.

Zooko Wilcox, the head of Zcash

Zcash was already preparing for the release. Zooko Wilcox, CEO of the company which was developing a new cryptocurrency, invited respected experts in the field of the blockchain, computer security, cryptography, influential people in business to join the team. This way he could obtain substantial investments. On October 28, 2016, Zcash started appearing on the market.

Cryptocurrency Zcash: looks like Bitcoin, but much better

The distributed Bitcoin registry keeps records of all copies of digital coins issued, all transactions, their time, volume and participants. Despite the fact that the sender and receiver are "hidden" under assumed names, to identify their personalities — it is simple guesswork.

Zcash algorithm securely hides information about the details of transactions using a particular mathematical method which is called "zero-knowledge proof." Strongly simplifying, we can describe it like this: Zerocash protocol doesn’t "peek" into the contents of the transmitted data to validate the authenticity of the transaction. As a result, the record of the transaction in the distributed registry contains neither the value of the transaction nor information about the participants.

Therefore, each digital coin Zcash is impersonal, universal and interchangeable. In this case it differs from its crypto ancestor — Bitcoin, the history of which can be traced since the day it was “born”.

Competitors of Zcash

Some other cryptocurrencies guarantee the anonymity of the participants in transactions. The most famous of them are Dash and Monero. Confidentiality of transactions is realized by a variety of means, popularity, capitalization and exchange rate are also different.

Dash and Monero ranked 10th and 11th in the CoinMarketCap rating. Zcash ranked 17th. By capitalization, Dash and Monero almost four times win from Zcash. The exchange value, the volume of transactions and the number of coins issued are too variable to write about them separately. Below you can learn more about the reputation of these cryptos.

Reputation

Zcash, Dash, and Monero are a cause for concern in government agencies of different countries, as a common means of payment in the criminal world. This is the opinion of the Europol expert on the analysis of cybercrime, Jarek Jacubchek.

Japantimes.co.jp reports that the Japanese stock exchange Coincheck intends to refuse trading with Zcash, Dash, and Monero.

There is such a tendency: the desire of some cryptocurrency market participants to purify themselves of any doubtful assets and to maintain operations completely legitimately under the influence of state bodies. It meets the opposition of others — those who consider the confidentiality of information about participants in the transaction not as a front for organized crime but as a basic condition to ensure the protection of individual rights.

Developers of Zcash: "Let's prohibit cash now?"

The founders of Zcash speak of this situation as follows: "Criminals will always enjoy any benefits of progress which are convenient for them. For example, cars and cash are also popular in the criminal world. But no one is going to ban banknotes and cars because of this. The anonymity of transactions with the use of Zcash guarantees the security of participants in the transaction: from unscrupulous competitors who can learn the details of the activity of businessmen to use this information against them; from criminals who show interest in the well-being of a particular person".

Edward Snowden is one of the famous people who repeatedly mention and recommend Zcash. He believes that Zcash is a good alternative to Bitcoin, and over time it will crowd out the first digital coin, which is less secure from the market.

Edward Snowden recommended Zcash several times

Pros, cons and prospects

All this hype with Zcash and other anonymous digital money can be interesting for an ordinary participant of the cryptocurrency market due to the following:

• Under the pressure of government agencies, some сryptocurrency exchanges may refuse to trade Zcash and similar ones.
• Due to restrictions and tightening of rules, anonymous cryptocurrencies can become even more popular and go up in price.
• Authoritative specialists (Snowden) and influential financial institutions (JPMorgan) prefer Zcash to other cryptocurrencies.

Z-cash: how to buy

There are no difficulties. You can buy and make transactions with Zcash via most popular cryptocurrency exchanges and exchange services.

You can store this cryptocurrency in the wallet created by Zcash developers. Its official version supports the Linux operating system only, and as well as all the versions for other platforms released by the community supporting this cryptocurrency.

Most famous cold and hot wallets also support Zcash (Crypto, Jaxx, Coinomi, Ledger, etc.)

Zcash: how to use

Due to the anonymity of this cryptocurrency, you should use Zcash to make safe transactions. The increasing pressure of state bodies on digital assets leads to a situation where the price of anonymous cryptocurrency can grow and Zcash can be seen as one of the promising assets in the investment portfolio.