Zcash is a Bitcoin fork. Because of that simple fact, they have a lot in common. There are two types of Zcash transactions: private and public (similar to BTC). When you download the official Zcash wallet, you will notice it offers two types of addresses: t-addr, your public address, and z-addr, your private address. Due to the encryption of the contents in the shielded transactions, the protocol uses a cryptographic method to prove transaction validity.See full review