Zcash offers total payment confidentiality, while still maintaining a decentralized network using a public blockchain
cryptocurrencies·@crypt07·
0.000 HBDZcash offers total payment confidentiality, while still maintaining a decentralized network using a public blockchain
 Zcash is a decentralized and open-source cryptocurrency that offers privacy and selective transparency of transactions. Zcash payments are published on a public blockchain, but the sender, recipient, and amount of a transaction remain private. Zcash is based on peer-reviewed cryptographic research, and built by a security-specialized engineering team on an open source platform based on Bitcoin Core's battle-tested codebase. Our improvement over Bitcoin is the addition of privacy. Zcash uses advanced cryptographic techniques, namely zero-knowledge proofs, to guarantee the validity of transactions without revealing additional information about them. Zcash Parameters At its core, Zcash's privacy technology relies on a novel cryptographic tool called a zkSNARK - a small zero-knowledge proof that is cheap to verify. Zcash will be the first to employ this powerful tool on a large scale. For these zkSNARKs to work, a setup phase is required where the "system parameters" are generated. This setup phase is similar to the setup phase of a public-key cryptosystem, but with a catch: As in the public-key cryptosystem, a pair (privkey,privkey, pubkey)pubkey) is generated, but then privkeyprivkey is destroyed. Indeed, it will be essential for the integrity of the system that after the setup phase nobody possesses privkey.  Zcash Transaction Since the successful launch of the Zcash network on October 28th, we've had an outpouring of interest from miners and users who want to take advantage of the confidentiality and privacy properties enabled in the protocol. When sending or receiving ZEC, the added choice of using shielded or transparent addresses is an important factor for those users. Understanding how these two types are used in a transaction is a suitable place to start to make the most informed choices.