ZCash (formerly Zerocash/Zerocoin) technology preview
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Re: ZCash (formerly Zerocash/Zerocoin) technology preview
#2Nothing new here. Add it to the pile of hundreds of other altcoins.
Why is this here? Feels like the pump-and-dump world of altcoins is being done here to pump up this post.
Re: ZCash (formerly Zerocash/Zerocoin) technology preview
#3There seems to be plenty of privacy-oriented altcoins around. How does the privacy model of zcash compare to others, like monero or dash?
Re: ZCash (formerly Zerocash/Zerocoin) technology preview
#4Nothing new here. Add it to the pile of hundreds of other altcoins. Why is this here? Feels like the pump-and-dump world of altcoins is being done here to pump up this post.
10% of all mining rewards for the first 5 years go to the developers. The tech is certainly interesting, but the pseudo-premine makes me a little wary of putting any significant amount of money into it.
Citation: https://z.cash/blog/funding.html (Check the "Founder's reward" section)
Re: ZCash (formerly Zerocash/Zerocoin) technology preview
#5Actually, zerocash is significantly different than other altcoins, in that it replaces digital signatures with zero knowledge proofs. It's technically very interesting, and seems like a believable next direction for Bitcoiners. The other direction would be some variant of ethereum.
If you don't believe that a general purpose one-size-fits-all blockchain technology can be easily and safely created, but you would prefer more privacy and security, Zcash is a frankly compelling idea, and deserves a look.
Monero uses a different scheme (ring signatures, essentially mixing in fake and real digital signatures) for privacy. To my knowledge, they don't duplicate the 'blinding' type of hiding about bucket recipients and ownership that zcash does.
Note also that BIP47 and the like are trying to add some of these privacy features into Bitcoin core, so there's lots of angles on improved privacy.
Re: ZCash (formerly Zerocash/Zerocoin) technology preview
#6Nothing new here. Add it to the pile of hundreds of other altcoins. Why is this here? Feels like the pump-and-dump world of altcoins is being done here to pump up this post.
> Nothing new here. Add it to the pile of hundreds of other altcoins.
It sounds to me like you don't understand the technology involved. To be fair, it's probably Greek to most people outside of crypto.
How many of the other altcoins were based on zero-knowledge proofs or allowed for private transfers (with respect to the blockchain)?
I'm not aware of any. I think that's something new and worth talking about.
(EDIT: Snark was removed. Sorry dang.)
Re: ZCash (formerly Zerocash/Zerocoin) technology preview
#7Nothing new here. Add it to the pile of hundreds of other altcoins. Why is this here? Feels like the pump-and-dump world of altcoins is being done here to pump up this post.
> Why is this here?
Actually there's a precise answer to that. In yesterday's popular Keybase.io thread, the submitter (rdl) said "Along with Zcash, it is the most amazing crypto-engineering project I've seen in years." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11037297
That was evidence the community might find it interesting, and the project hadn't had discussion on HN yet, so we invited an earlier submitter (malgorithms) to repost it. From there it received significant community interest.
> Nothing new here. Add it to the pile
Whoa, this is exactly what we ask commenters not to do when discussing new work on Hacker News. The ratio of dismissiveness to substance in your post is too high. Substantive criticism is fine, of course, but not this; it degrades the discussion.
If you know something or have a genuine insight—including a critical one—you're more than welcome to share it. But "nothing new here", "add it to the pile", and "feels like" is far too weak to justify a dismissive swipe. A comment like this would be better phrased as the question, "What is new here?", in a spirit of curiosity not snark.
Re: ZCash (formerly Zerocash/Zerocoin) technology preview
#8There seems to be plenty of privacy-oriented altcoins around. How does the privacy model of zcash compare to others, like monero or dash?
I can't do an apples-apples comparison to the ones you listed because I'm only familiar with Bitcoin and the original Zerocash paper. I can say that the zkSNARK approach to crypto-currency is certainly novel and they have a great team of competent cryptographers and engineers on the team.
That is to say, Zcash isn't a hobbyist effort, it's the result of serious crypto engineering. It's not clown-shoes privacy.
Re: ZCash (formerly Zerocash/Zerocoin) technology preview
#9Nothing new here. Add it to the pile of hundreds of other altcoins. Why is this here? Feels like the pump-and-dump world of altcoins is being done here to pump up this post.
I can't speak to as to whether Zcash is a pump-and-dump particularly, but I do know a bit about financing the technology development behind blockchains, and it's difficult. If the code is open source, you risk a fork and loss of any intrinsic value. If you sell the coins, you risk SEC difficulties in the USA. If you premine, people complain that you premined. If your company controls the currency, you get forks when founders leave (e.g. Ripple/Stellar), and you have to build large compliance teams.
In the end, though, blockchain tech needs SIGNIFICANTLY more technology development than it has had so far to develop its latent potential.
I'm sure blockchain enthusiasts would be interested in your suggestions as to how to get development funded.
Re: ZCash (formerly Zerocash/Zerocoin) technology preview
#10Actually, zerocash is significantly different than other altcoins, in that it replaces digital signatures with zero knowledge proofs. It's technically very interesting, and seems like a believable next direction for Bitcoiners. The other direction would be some variant of ethereum. If you don't believe that a general purpose one-size-fits-all blockchain technology can be easily and safely created, but you would prefe…
Two questions I've yet to receive answers on:
- my laptop is stolen in a compromised state (eg logged on, nothing left encrypted); can anyone trace my transactions?
- I've read suggestions that Zcash themselves can deanonymize every transaction, thanks to generating the initial "Genesis" block. Is that roughly right? (Ignoring obfuscation techniques like getting many other people to create separate signatures)
I'm definitely concerned that this comes with a lot of asterisks next to its claims.