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Zcash Is Disrupting Crypto
Image by Kait Cunniff with DALL-E
A cryptocurrency called Zcash is gaining traction across the industry as a more private alternative to Bitcoin.
Why It Hits: Cryptocurrency — especially Bitcoin and various stablecoins — has gone mainstream in recent years, though not without several caveats. That’s been a boon for everyday investors looking to enter decentralized finance, but it has also diluted some of the utility that early adopters once valued. Some hope Zcash can help bring that original mission back into focus.
Behind The Transactions: In the crypto world, many believe privacy is the best policy, according to The WSJ.
Like Bitcoin and other cryptos, Zcash users trade on a public ledger. The key difference is that Zcash “gives users the option to use shielded addresses,” which rely on encryption to conceal sensitive information such as the sender, recipient, and transaction amount.
Users can then generate “viewing keys” to share transaction details with regulators or auditors — but they don’t have to.
That level of privacy can be especially valuable for individuals living under authoritarian regimes who want protection from financial surveillance, as well as for companies seeking to keep sensitive information — such as payroll data and supplier relationships — confidential.
On the flip side, it could also be exploited by bad actors to obscure criminal activity or evade government sanctions.
Final Ledger: Zcash isn’t new — it was founded by scientists and engineers from MIT and Johns Hopkins University back in 2016 as a way to address Bitcoin’s privacy issues. Now, “privacy tokens” are all the rage. The Winklevoss twins have launched a holding company to invest $50 million in the crypto, and Grayscale Investments is turning its Zcash holdings into a publicly traded fund in hopes of recreating its first-mover success with Bitcoin ETFs.
All of this activity has helped drive Zcash up 1,140% over the past year, while Bitcoin has slipped 24% — with the caveat that Zcash remains worth only a fraction of Bitcoin’s value. Still, we may be witnessing a changing of the crypto guard.
The Future: Expect some forward-thinking retail investors to get their hands on a little Zcash — no one wants to be left behind in another wild crypto rally.
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Today’s email was written by David Vendrell.
Edited by Nick Comney. Polled and Copy-edited by Kait Cunniff.
Published by Darline Salazar.