(Article date: Oct 29th 2016). This is so last week. Zcash has already crashed. Peaked around $5000, today $127. Not only that, the anonymity feature didn't work. You can't send to "z addresses" only. This is claimed by the developers to be a bug they will fix. Since that was the main feature of this altcoin, and they shipped with it broken, they're either incompetent or disabled it to avoid regulatory problems.
Roger Ver, a convicted felon who claimed Mt. Gox was sound[1], is involved with ZCash. What could possibly go wrong?
ZCash is from Tel Aviv, headquarters of "binary option" scams. The entire Tel Aviv based binary options business has been exposed as a scam. [2] (Short version: a binary option is a bet against the house, not other investors, and the house cheats. Online binary option companies claimed to be in lots of places, including Trump Tower, but they're almost always really in Tel Aviv.) People in the "binary option" industry are now looking for new scams. "Forex" is one. There's a lot of interest in "blockchains" there.[3] This is a worry.
Zcash prices were insanely high on day one because demand was high and there was practically no supply. Everyone knew that was going to happen and the price is now normalizing.
There is a bug with mining to zaddresses but Zcash developers have been extremely transparent about it and were the first to say that this crypto is untested and will be iterated.
As for Tel Aviv... it doesn't matter where technology is developed, does it? Your comment strikes me as xenophobic muck raking.
ZCash has unique properties. You're free to not buy it and honestly the negative speculation helps those of us that are interested in using it as it keeps prices down (for now).
This article neglects to mention Monero or Dash, the preexisting altcoins designed to be have anonymous transactions, or any existing shuffling tools like dark wallet.
Anonymity is not a binary. Monero, even with the addition of RingCT, is vulnerable to transaction graph analysis (intersection attacks) that can de-anonymize users. Zcash takes a completely different approach that achieves ledger indistinguishability -- shielded transactions in the blockchain have no apparent relationship with each other, which is an essential privacy benefit.
Much of what I read in that thread is wrong or misleading: Monero does not have a trusted setup, but it's important to note that a failure in Zcash's setup does not disrupt the privacy of the system. The "poison-pill" vulnerability is not a concern in our system. The claims about the anonymity set are very misleading. It is possible to do far more than multi-sig in our system, we just haven't implemented it yet. The point about mining is specific to the paper and is irrelevant.
There are downsides to the system, such as our performance problems, but they are solveable given time. Zcash is obviously not the only player, but it's also going to continue to grow and adapt and improve, just like other cryptocurrencies will.
"The first few issues of The Economist were...written almost entirely by James Wilson, the founding editor, though he wrote in the first-person plural.
...
Having started off as a way for one person to give the impression of being many, anonymity has since come to serve the opposite function at The Economist: it allows many writers to speak with a collective voice."
Their slow-mining start was, I think, a very bad idea. I get that they wanted a more fair distribution and to prevent an initial bubble. However, bubbles and rich early adopters result in organic viral marketing and create a network effect. Given zcash's hype, with a faster coin issuance they had the potential to beat ethereum in marketcap.
I really hope they succeed, anonymous currency is badly needed.
Great job - the currency is down 97-99% since launch 2 weeks ago (depending on what prices one takes from the first day of public trading). I've been following Altcoin launches since 2013, and this was the most ill-advised and corrupted so far.
Zcash has a "mining slow start" which slowly ramps up the mining reward for the first two weeks, to reduce the threat that a large amount of the ultimate monetary base would be in control of early-advantage miners. As a result of the significantly reduced supply, the price was very high shortly after launch.
In fairness, this one is actually interesting, in the way that Monero and Ethereum (and perhaps Ripple and Stellar) were also interesting, and 99% of the other alt-coins are not. That doesn't mean it's a good idea or will be successful or profitable, but it's at least interesting.
Launches are happening everyday. Best performing Altcoin is Ethereum. It went to 1,000,000,000$ this year very quickly. On average investing in Altcoins will likely lose money.
Can't say that I like the idea of a kingly reserve to "align interests". Honestly the biggest pull I would have to invest is because I feel I missed the boat with Bitcoin and would feel smart being getting in on the ground floor.
[+] [-] Animats|9 years ago|reply
Roger Ver, a convicted felon who claimed Mt. Gox was sound[1], is involved with ZCash. What could possibly go wrong?
ZCash is from Tel Aviv, headquarters of "binary option" scams. The entire Tel Aviv based binary options business has been exposed as a scam. [2] (Short version: a binary option is a bet against the house, not other investors, and the house cheats. Online binary option companies claimed to be in lots of places, including Trump Tower, but they're almost always really in Tel Aviv.) People in the "binary option" industry are now looking for new scams. "Forex" is one. There's a lot of interest in "blockchains" there.[3] This is a worry.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UP1YsMlrfF0 [2] http://www.timesofisrael.com/the-wolves-of-tel-aviv-israels-... [3] http://bravenewcoin.com/news/bitcoin-and-blockchain-startups...
[+] [-] exstudent2|9 years ago|reply
There is a bug with mining to zaddresses but Zcash developers have been extremely transparent about it and were the first to say that this crypto is untested and will be iterated.
As for Tel Aviv... it doesn't matter where technology is developed, does it? Your comment strikes me as xenophobic muck raking.
ZCash has unique properties. You're free to not buy it and honestly the negative speculation helps those of us that are interested in using it as it keeps prices down (for now).
[+] [-] ewillbefull|9 years ago|reply
> Not only that, the anonymity feature didn't work. You can't send to "z addresses" only.
This is untrue, there was a bug that _delayed_ mining of some transactions to z addresses, but not all of them, and it was fixed last week.
[+] [-] micimize|9 years ago|reply
I'm not an expert by any means, but this seems like a good compare/contrast that elucidates zcash's actual place in the space: https://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/41vg68/monero_vs_zc...
[+] [-] ewillbefull|9 years ago|reply
Anonymity is not a binary. Monero, even with the addition of RingCT, is vulnerable to transaction graph analysis (intersection attacks) that can de-anonymize users. Zcash takes a completely different approach that achieves ledger indistinguishability -- shielded transactions in the blockchain have no apparent relationship with each other, which is an essential privacy benefit.
Much of what I read in that thread is wrong or misleading: Monero does not have a trusted setup, but it's important to note that a failure in Zcash's setup does not disrupt the privacy of the system. The "poison-pill" vulnerability is not a concern in our system. The claims about the anonymity set are very misleading. It is possible to do far more than multi-sig in our system, we just haven't implemented it yet. The point about mining is specific to the paper and is irrelevant.
There are downsides to the system, such as our performance problems, but they are solveable given time. Zcash is obviously not the only player, but it's also going to continue to grow and adapt and improve, just like other cryptocurrencies will.
[+] [-] joecool1029|9 years ago|reply
I looked but seem to have missed the disclaimer for this paid advertising. A curious omission of its author too?
[+] [-] JumpCrisscross|9 years ago|reply
"The first few issues of The Economist were...written almost entirely by James Wilson, the founding editor, though he wrote in the first-person plural.
...
Having started off as a way for one person to give the impression of being many, anonymity has since come to serve the opposite function at The Economist: it allows many writers to speak with a collective voice."
http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2013/09/ec...
[+] [-] duckingtest|9 years ago|reply
I really hope they succeed, anonymous currency is badly needed.
[+] [-] bachback|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ewillbefull|9 years ago|reply
Zcash has a "mining slow start" which slowly ramps up the mining reward for the first two weeks, to reduce the threat that a large amount of the ultimate monetary base would be in control of early-advantage miners. As a result of the significantly reduced supply, the price was very high shortly after launch.
[+] [-] mabbo|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dgacmu|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bachback|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] curiousgal|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MrQuincle|9 years ago|reply
That would be the same as the Ubercoin they mention I suppose.
[+] [-] badloginagain|9 years ago|reply