Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

ZCash Will Be a Truly Anonymous Blockchain-Based Currency

spectrum.ieee.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 285 posts

Re: ZCash Will Be a Truly Anonymous Blockchain-Based Currency

#51

Post by akanter »

RangerScience wrote: post #38

Here's a question: I can see the value in an anonymized blockchain for use by individuals... ...but, is there a reason that anonymity would be good for use in a blockchain for use by businesses? Or, is it categorically better for a business-centric blockchain to have the most identity possible?

They touch on that in the link. "“There are regulatory and commercial and moral reasons for privacy from all sectors,” he says. To give a commercial example: Apple wouldn’t want Samsung to be able to track its transactions and gain valuable competitive intelligence."

I agree with this sentiment.

Re: ZCash Will Be a Truly Anonymous Blockchain-Based Currency

#52

Post by tom_mellior »

wmf wrote: post #36
mootothemax wrote: post #31

"But in ZCash, the miners only get to keep ninety percent of those coins. The rest gets dumped into accounts controlled by the ZCash company" This alone makes me extremely sceptical.

Unlike Bitcoin, where Satoshi probably mined 5% of all BTC before other people noticed? Or unlike Bitcoin, where developers get paid by layering centralized startups on top?

5% less fishy, not more.

Re: ZCash Will Be a Truly Anonymous Blockchain-Based Currency

#53

Post by empath75 »

jandrese wrote: post #24

I'm failing to see how this is superior to the hundreds of altcoins already available. What makes this better than Bitcoin, Dogecoin, or Kanyecoin? Why should I choose it over the competition?

I'm sort of annoyed at the whole concept of 'alt-coin' as if bitcoin is the one, true cryptocurrency and everything else are mere pretenders. Bitcoin has flaws: Transactions aren't really anonymous, mining has become centralized, it's nearly impossible to earn money as an independent miner, it's incredibly inefficient for transmitting small sums of money, etc... There are going to be other coins that try to solve those problems in different ways. They aren't 'altcoins'. They're just cryptocurrencies, and they'll rise and fall on the merits just like any other cryptocurrency.

There's a whole lot of fud and hype and just plain misinformation in the cryptocurrency space because a lot of people treat them like penny stocks to run pump and dump scams on, but that doesn't mean they're all just that.

Re: ZCash Will Be a Truly Anonymous Blockchain-Based Currency

#54

Post by paavokoya »

Animats wrote: post #39

Another altcoin. This one has a 10% pre-mining cut for the founders: "Zcash's monetary base will be the same as Bitcoin's — 21 million Zcash currency units (ZEC, or ⓩ) will be mined over time. 10% of that reward will be distributed to the stakeholders in the Zcash Company — founders, investors, employees, and advisors. We call this the “Founders Reward”." Here's a list of the other 709 altcoins.[1] 373 of them are st…

It's the internet vs. intranets all over again. People have too much stock invested in "bitcoin is fundamentally flawed" and before that it was "bitcoin is a scam". Now it's "a different bitcoin is the answer".

EDIT: Time and again getting downvotes because of HN's cognitive dissonance. Pathetic low-tier reddit run-off is entering HN's market share.

Re: ZCash Will Be a Truly Anonymous Blockchain-Based Currency

#55

Post by nathcd »

bandrami wrote: post #26
TearsInTheRain wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is anyone working on/does it make sense to have blockchain based voting for elections?

It's been looked at (my advisor in grad school was working on it) and it keeps running up against the problem of scaling -- 100 million transactions (800 million if you want to scale up to India) on a single day is going to be hard from a realization standpoint, even if it's theoretically doable. There's also the interesting psychological side to it: while a blockchain system is in a theoretical sense more transparen…

We can just use cryptography and forego the blockchain for much more scalable verifiable elections:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End-to-end_auditable_voting_sy...

https://vote.heliosvoting.org/

Re: ZCash Will Be a Truly Anonymous Blockchain-Based Currency

#56

Post by [deleted] »

wmf wrote: post #36
mootothemax wrote: post #31

"But in ZCash, the miners only get to keep ninety percent of those coins. The rest gets dumped into accounts controlled by the ZCash company" This alone makes me extremely sceptical.

Unlike Bitcoin, where Satoshi probably mined 5% of all BTC before other people noticed? Or unlike Bitcoin, where developers get paid by layering centralized startups on top?

[deleted]

Re: ZCash Will Be a Truly Anonymous Blockchain-Based Currency

#57

Post by seagreen »

wh0rth wrote: post #7

The blockchain is slowly going to become a dominant pillar of our transactions. Whether it be information, money, etc., blockchain will probably be a part of it. If we want it to be secure anyway...

  If we want it to be secure anyway...
Oh God, I'm _really_ hoping you're being sarcastic.

You've read about the dozens on dozens of compromised exchanges?

You heard about the DAO hack?

You realize that the majority of bitcoin is mined by like a dozen people in China?

Maybe someday we'll get our act together, but right now blockchains are a recipe for FUD and centralization.

(I say this as someone who thinks bitcoin is cool. For instance, the traditional financial system makes it unnecessarily hard to send money overseas, a need bitcoin can fill well. But secure? No.)

Re: ZCash Will Be a Truly Anonymous Blockchain-Based Currency

#58

Post by Just_Another »

TearsInTheRain wrote: post #10
wh0rth wrote: post #7

The blockchain is slowly going to become a dominant pillar of our transactions. Whether it be information, money, etc., blockchain will probably be a part of it. If we want it to be secure anyway...

Is anyone working on/does it make sense to have blockchain based voting for elections?

Yes, Dash (DashPay) has been up and voting on stuff for a couple years. Because I own 1,000 of the things I get to vote on stuff like sending devs to conferences and different ad campaigns to run, then the winning bids get paid out of the block reward. If we vote no the Dash just gets destroyed and inflation is slightly reduced.

Re: ZCash Will Be a Truly Anonymous Blockchain-Based Currency

#59

Post by nathcd »

paavokoya wrote: post #54
Animats wrote: post #39

Another altcoin. This one has a 10% pre-mining cut for the founders: "Zcash's monetary base will be the same as Bitcoin's — 21 million Zcash currency units (ZEC, or ⓩ) will be mined over time. 10% of that reward will be distributed to the stakeholders in the Zcash Company — founders, investors, employees, and advisors. We call this the “Founders Reward”." Here's a list of the other 709 altcoins.[1] 373 of them are st…

It's the internet vs. intranets all over again. People have too much stock invested in "bitcoin is fundamentally flawed" and before that it was "bitcoin is a scam". Now it's "a different bitcoin is the answer". EDIT: Time and again getting downvotes because of HN's cognitive dissonance. Pathetic low-tier reddit run-off is entering HN's market share.

I really hope for some success from Interledger[1] and the Web Payments Community Group at W3C[2] to start bridging the gap and letting people exchange money (directly) with whatever currencies they want.

[1] https://interledger.org/

[2] https://web-payments.org/

Re: ZCash Will Be a Truly Anonymous Blockchain-Based Currency

#60

Post by stale2002 »

vkou wrote: post #35
seansoutpost wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Multisignature wallets mean that you can beat the credentials out of a person and still not be able to access the coins. You would have to figure out who else had keys and beat then too. Raising the difficulty a non-trivial level.

For the wallet to be useful, the person you are beating will either know who else needs to be beaten, can be compelled to withdraw their funds under duress, or in the case of a centralized counterparty, like a bank, can be trivially compelled by a government bearing a lawful order, to sign off on a money transfer. If none of those means of getting you to pay work out, they can always leave you to enjoy your internet…

The issue is that they have no idea how much money you 'actually' have.

If someone threatens you with a wrench, you simply do what they ask you to do and provide a password to your "account" that conveniently doesnt have much money in it.

"yes officer! I have done exactly what you asked me to do. Here is all the electronic money that I own. "

Post reply on HN