March 28, 2024

What is Zcash (ZEC)?

1

What is Zcash (ZEC)?

Zcash is a peer-to-peer payment system with the same unit of account.

2

Who andwhen did zcash create?

  • The creators: cryptographers Matthew Green, Jan Myers, Christina Garman, Abel Rubin, Eli Ben-Sasson, Alessandro Chiesa, Madars Virza, Eran Tromer (developers of the basic coin protocols: Zerocoin and Zerocash).
  • The development is carried out by the commercial organization Electric Coin Company, whose executive director is cypherpunk and cybersecurity specialist Zuko Wilcox-O'Hern.
  • Project announcement date: January 20, 2016.
  • Launch date: October 28, 2016.

3

What is the core technology of Zcash?

Zcash is based on the Zerocash protocol, in whichzk-SNARK (zero-knowledge Succinct Non-interactive ARgument of Knowledge) technology is used - a zero-disclosure evidence using simple and clear non-interactive arguments of knowledge.

Zero-disclosure proof isa cryptographic protocol that allows one side (the prover) to confirm the truth of the statement to the other side (the verifier), without revealing in the process any additional information about this other side (neither the content nor the source from which the prover learned about the veracity).

Such a definition was first proposed.researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Shafi Goldwasser, Silvio Mikali, and Charles Rakoff in the scientific article “The Complexity of Evidence in Interactive Systems” (1985).

4

What are the key features and capabilities of Zcash?

  • Transactions

Transactions with a low commission (0.0001 Zcash).

  • Addresses and transaction privacy

The protocol contains two types of addresses: transparent "t" addresses and private "z" addresses.
ZEC can be sent between "t" addresses and "z" addresses, but only transactions between "z" addresses and "z" addresses are completely private. There are 4 types of transactions on the ZCash network:

Public: t-address -> t-address
Protected: t-address -> z-address
Unmasked: z-address -> t-address
Private: z-address -> z-address

  • Encrypted Memo Fields (Note Fields)

The memo field is available for secure transactions, which allows the sender to include in it information relevant to the recipient in a fully encrypted form.

  • View Keys

Protected address owners may disclosetransaction details for auditing and regulatory compliance. The owner of the address can disclose all incoming transactions and the contents of the memo field.

  • Multisignature Transactions

Zcash supports multi-signature transactions: the transfer of funds requires the approval of two or more parties. Multisignature transactions cannot be used with z-addresses.

5

How does mining of Zcash tokens happen?

  • Zcash mining uses the Equihash algorithm.
  • During the Blossom update, the speed of generating new blocks was doubled (75 seconds instead of the previous 150 seconds). However, the developers reduced the amount of remuneration to 6.25 ZEC.
  • All 21 million ZEC coins will be mined by around 2050.

6

How is the Zcash project funded?

The project financing model is different from fair launch, premine and ICO.

Zcash developers receive the "founders award": in the first four years, miners get 80% of the coins mined, the team - 20%. Part of the "founders' award" goes to the non-profit organization Zcash Foundation, which spends money on the development of the project.

7

How is the Zcash project developing?

Developer Zcash Electric Coin Company(ECC) intends to make radical changes to the architecture of this cryptocurrency. The plans of the creators of the project provide that the Zcash network will be able to process millions of transactions per second and by 2050 will be able to serve 10 billion people. This may require a transition to a new type of blockchain with support for sharding technology. It will need to be created from scratch. Efforts will also be required to ensure that the ZEC coin is transferred to the new chain so that it does not lose value.

With the new blockchain, developersexpect to solve another big problem of Zcash - too little use of private transactions (their share today does not exceed 2% of the total). It is possible that the new Zcash blockchain will be incompatible with transparent transactions in principle.

In January 2020, the Zcash user community, as part of the vote, identified a new distribution scheme for mining rewards on the network.

In accordance with the decision, the miners will continuereceive 80%, Electric Coin Company, the coin developer, will receive 7%, and the Zcash Foundation - 5%. The remaining 8% will be given to grants to third-party developers. A new reward distribution structure will be introduced in November 2020 if the Zcash Foundation and Electric Coin Company approve the changes.