What is Zcash (ZEC)?
Zcash is a cryptocurrency that grew out of the Zerocoin project, aimed at improving anonymity for Bitcoin users. The Zerocoin protocol was initially improved and transformed into Zerocash, which thus yielded the Zcash cryptocurrency in 2016. Zcash encrypts the contents of shielded transactions, using a novel form of zero-knowledge cryptography called zk-SNARKs to verify their validity and ensures that the sender, recipient, and amount transferred are all kept private.
Zcash has a fixed total supply of 21 million units, similar to Bitcoin. The founder and CEO of Zcash is Zooko Wilcox-O'Hearn. Its founding team includes cryptographer Matthew D. Green from Johns Hopkins University. Roger Ver was one of Zcash's initial investors.
Zcash is a decentralized cryptocurrency focused on privacy and anonymity. It uses the zk-SNARK zero-knowledge proof technology that allows nodes on the network to verify transactions without revealing any sensitive information about those transactions.Contrary to a common misunderstanding, the majority of cryptocurrencies on the market, including Bitcoin (BTC), are not anonymous, but rather pseudonymous; while they do not explicitly reveal the identities of their users, each user has their own public address or addresses which can be traced back to them via the methods of data science and blockchain forensics.Zcash transactions, on the other hand, still have to be relayed via a public blockchain, but unlike pseudonymous cryptocurrencies, ZEC transactions by default do not reveal the sending and receiving addresses or the amount being sent. There is an option, however, to reveal this data for the purposes of auditing or regulatory compliance.Zcash was first released on October 28, 2016, and it was originally based on Bitcoin’s codebase.