The development team has even alluded to a future plan for abandoning fully transparent addresses altogether. A z-address user can share transaction details through a view key, which allows read access only. Such selective disclosure is allowed for purposes of auditing, anti-money laundering, and tax regulations. The ECC raised $3 million in funding to develop the initial Zcash protocol. Zooko Wilcox-O’Hearn was also previously involved with Digicash, Mojo Nation, and the Tahoe Least-Authority File Store filesystem. The Zcash network is secured through the “proof-of-work” SHA-256 hash function.
This “tax on mining” is not without contention though and is a reason for a number of forks have occurred on the ZCash chain. We will try and explain exactly what ZCash is and how the underlying technology is able to make it one of the premier privacy coins. However, when you dug deeper into the technology, you were greeted with a whole host of complicated concepts. This is indeed the case as ZCash does borrow some highly advanced cryptographical theories. You will probably have heard a great deal about the cryptocurrency and its supposed privacy benefits. “In terms of what we haven’t progressed on as fast as we would have liked, we had hoped to have made more progress on shielded hardware wallet support,” said Smith.
Does ZCash Use Proof of Work?
However, it’s important to note that it’s not fully compatible with application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) which are costly to operate for miners. While it has had ups and its downs, the fact that the currency still exists at all is at least a testament to its durability. It has a price of $110.80, a circulating supply of almost 13.8 million, and a market cap of $1.5 billion, ranking #79 among all cryptocurrencies. Reading https://www.tokenexus.com/what-is-a-zcash-and-how-does-it-work/ through various best crypto exchange reviews online, you’re bound to notice that one of the things that most of these exchanges have in common is that they are very simple to use. While some are more straightforward and beginner-friendly than others, you shouldn’t encounter any difficulties with either of the top-rated exchanges. That said, many users believe that KuCoin is one of the simpler exchanges on the current market.
When the initial Zerocoin proposal faced a lack of traction and acceptance within the Bitcoin developer community, the core Zerocoin team decided to launch an independent cryptocurrency. They approached noted cryptographer Zooko Wilcox-O’Hearn to lead the new coin’s development, and recruited other scientists including Eli Ben-Sassoon and Alessandro Chiesa. In Bitcoin’s privacy model, a user’s transactions are publicly viewable, but their identity is not. While this system is secure to some extent, users’ identities can sometimes be deduced from their transaction history and other external information.
What Is The Future of Zcash?
As of August 31, 2021, Zcash (ZEC) was priced at $143.72, with a market capitalization of $1.8 billion. While there are some concerns about particular aspects of the technology, the ZCash team is aware of them and actively working on improvements. One must not forget that the technology is so new that there will inevitably be doubts from one corner or the other.
- The proof-of-work cryptographic mining method works through application-specific computers competing to solve difficult mathematical problems defined by the Equihash hashing algorithm.
- The blockchain ICO’s stage 2 has already seen high interest, raising about $67,250, and its selling out rapidly where each token is priced at $0.0075.
- Wilcox-O’Hearn remains the CEO of the Electric Coin Company, which has about 30 employees and leads Zcash’s development.
- Some newer cryptocurrencies have features that make the tracing of them quite complicated.
- CaptainAltcoin.com does not offer any sort of financial or investment advice.
- Whether they choose Monero, ZCash or any privacy coin, the end result is an advancement for financial privacy.
After the first halving in November 2020, Zcash did away with the “Founders Reward” and cut miners’ rewards from 6.25 ZEC to 3.125 ZEC. There is no doubt that ZCash is one of the most advanced cryptocurrencies on the market. It’s use of the latest cryptographic principles and technology makes it quite a contender for the privacy coin market. Sk-SNARKS are also being used on a number of other blockchains that want privacy enabled transactions. These include such projects as Komodo (KMD), Hcash (HC) and ZCoin (XZC) among others.