zcash is booming

viraldrome (67)in #crytocurrency • 6 years ago

*Disclaimer * this is not financial advice. Crypto is unpredictable and any money you invest could easily be lost.

Zcash the privacy coin is in the news

Zcash just got listed on the Gemini exchange, the exchange owned by the Winklevoss twins. The coin is booming at the moment. Zcash is way up today and Bitcoin kind of sluggish. I wonder if we are finally at the point where Bitcoin can drop but other coins can rise? About time, I hate the entire market being tied to Bitcoin, it's crazy. I have thousands in crypto, but no Bitcoin, I am sick of having to care what happens to Bitcoin. And just for transparency I own no Zcash (though I'm considering getting some!)

Zcash price today $351.63 USD up 12% on news of it's addition to Gemini

Market cap $1,388,174,950 USD

3,923,781 coins currently circulating

Here is the history of Zcash from Wikipedia:

Zcash is a cryptocurrency aimed at using cryptography to provide enhanced privacy for its users compared to other cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. The Zerocoin protocol was improved and transformed into the Zerocash system, which was then developed into the Zcash cryptocurrency in 2016.[1] Development of protocol improvements and the reference implementation is led by the Zerocoin Electric Coin Company, colloquially referred to as Zcash Company.[2][3] The founder and CEO of Zcash Company is Zooko Wilcox-O'Hearn. Its founding team includes cryptographer Matthew D. Green from Johns Hopkins University. Roger Ver was one of Zcash Company's initial investors.[1]

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So the idea is the transactions are still on a blockchain but you have to the option to hide the sender, receiver and amount. They used what is called "Zero Knowledge Proofs", encrypted transactions that are still validated by the blockchain. It will hopefully allow applications to be built on it that use encrypted transactions. Sounds promising, in my opinion.

Zcash will have the same total number of coins as Bitcoin at 21 million. I personally think privacy coins will always have a future. You can't ignore the fact that dark web marketplaces love them. They may be the thing that regulators love to hate, but they aren't going away.

Interesting feature: you can allow private transactions to be revealed to a third party so you can disclose a payment to say the taxman or to comply with anti money laundering regulations. There are some legitimate reasons to want to keep your transactions private. If the world knows you just got a huge payment, your wallet will a target for hackers. You could even be targeted for robbery or kidnapping.

Places like Japan are restricting privacy coins like Zcash and Monero but arguments can be made for why they exist. Not all uses are criminal. Privacy in the digital age is important. You don't post your banking statements online, why should all your crypto transactions be visible to everyone?

If you want to read up on the technology I suggest checking out the Zcash technolgy page here I am not a technical expert on cryptography or programming so it's a little beyond the scope of this blog, but there is a ton of info on the site.

Do you own any Zcash? Let me know in the comments below

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zcash is booming

Zcash the privacy coin is in the news

Here is the history of Zcash from Wikipedia:

Further reading

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