What is ZCash?

HISTORY OF ZCASH

Zcash, launched in October 2016, uses one of the newest cryptocurrencies in the world, but is a relatively young critical asset. Few cryptocurrencies have generated as much excitement as this one, and rightly so, given their large team of engineers. Vitalik Buterin, creator of Ethereum, was an advisor to the team and described Zcash as a company that offers “the advantages of using a public blockchain, while still ensuring the protection of your private information.” Two prestigious crypto asset investment firms, Pantera Capital and Digital Currency Group, also participated in the development of the currency.

The enthusiasm for its potential and the issuance model that the Zcash team chose for the coin – albeit with good intentions – helped drive its price through the roof after its launch, forming a typical bubble. In the same way that happened when Bitcoin was launched, Zcash’s issuance model was ethical, with the difference that when the first cryptocurrency was created there was no public pending. Instead, when the first Zcash units became available it seemed like the entire crypto world was aware of and wanted them.

The shortage of zcash’s initial offering, combined with the buzz its launch generated, pushed the price of the cryptocurrency to astronomical levels. It quickly hit $ 1,000 per coin, at the time it was even higher than the price of bitcoin. At one point, at Polionex, a popular crypto exchange, the price hit 1 zcash for 3,299 bitcoin, or nearly $ 2 million. However, at the end of 2016, the hysteria dissipated and zcash was trading in a stable range of $ 45 to $ 50.

The Zcash team is led by Zooko Wilcox, who was an early employee of DigiCash, a precursor to Bitcoin created by David Chaum. Through her experience in DigiCash and in the crypto field, Zooko has become one of the most respected members of the crypto community. A key innovation from Zcash is zk-SNARKs technology, a type of zero-knowledge proof that allows transactions to be sent between parties without revealing any information other than the validity of the transaction.

HOW ZCASH WORKS

How does it Work

ZCash uses the zk-SNARKS test that allows you to encrypt the information associated with a transaction. Concise, non-interactive knowledge building arguments ensure that transaction information is for the sender and receiver’s eyes only, and gives funds safe passage from the eyes of all bystanders and potential malicious actors. This is where ZCash beats Bitcoin and most other cryptocurrencies.

Apart from zk-SNARKS, ZCash uses the Equihash algorithm which tends to decentralize mining. Since Equihash requires higher RAM, it makes ASIC-driven mining hardware useless as these devices have a million times more processing power than normal CPUs and GPUs, but do not have better memory. . Since ZCash, other cryptocurrencies have started using this approach as well, while Ethereum did the same before.

When you conduct a ZCash transaction, you can take advantage of a memo field that can store private information relevant to the two parties involved in the transaction. This can be something like the number of coins you have and can denote your purchasing power. It is obvious that you would want to hide such sensitive information from other users, which is why ZCash is proving popular with users all over the world. The memo field is custom configured, which makes it useful for industries and also complies with regulatory authorities.