Review on Zcash by Saparov Meylis

While most cryptocurrencies show your complete payment history in a public ledger, Zcash is committed to keeping users private. It is the very first cryptocurrency available and open that can fully protect the privacy of transactions through zero-knowledge cryptography. Zcash is a type of open and decentralized cryptocurrency that has incredibly strong privacy protections.

The project uses peer-reviewed cryptographic research and was created by a security engineering team. It uses an open source platform based on the Bitcoin Core code base that has been extensively tested.

The project has secure transactions, so the blockchain does not display the sender, recipient, or transaction value. The developers explain it this way: Think of Bitcoin as http for money, in which case Zcash would be https, a secure transport layer.

In order for cryptocurrency blocks to be equally fungible, they have to abandon their specific history, ensuring that any unit has the same meaning as the others. The project allows for this fungibility in cryptocurrency, thanks to its ability to disable shielded coins, separating them from their history shown on the blockchain.

The project essentially combines the benefits of anonymity and privacy from around the world over digital currency with all the benefits associated with public blocking.

It is important to note that since the project uses an open source protocol, even Zcash cannot control its distribution or mining, or access information in secure or private transactions. This adds another layer of security for users by keeping personal information and transactions truly private.

The project works by encrypting information in secure transactions. Since the payment information is not visible due to encryption, the protocol relies on a new cryptographic method. This is zk-SNARK, a zero-knowledge proof construction. The project's cryptographic team developed this proof, drawing inspiration from the latest cryptographic breakthroughs. The system allows encryption, and zk-SNARK proves that no one stole or cheated.

When using Zcash, the system is very similar to Bitcoin. The main difference is that users can choose to encrypt or protect their information. The project supports transparent and secure addresses, so you can choose whether you want to send Zcash publicly or privately. Payments can even be sent from a secure address to a transparent one, or vice versa. In the first situation, the resulting balance will be visible, and in the second, it will be hidden.