Zcash takes one of the only novel parts of Bitcoin, not requiring trust in a central authority, and pitches it into the garbage.
The garbage is likely where Zcash belongs.
Is Zcash’s encrypted blockchain Satoshi’s vision?
31–40 of 71 posts
Re: Is Zcash’s encrypted blockchain Satoshi’s vision?
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
The trusted setup is not as bad as those two words make it sound without any context: 1. All people present in the trusted setup would have to be colluding or be compromised to cause an issue. 2. Some of these people have reason to make the currency succeed, because they own large amounts of zcash. 3. Some show the lengths they went to to prevent compromise: https://petertodd.org/2016/cypherpunk-desert-bus-zcash-trus…
Honest question: what about the potential of someone kidnapping two or more of these people and forcing them to give up their keys? What would the consequence of that be?
My understanding is that you would have to believe that they were kidnapped or otherwise under duress at the time that they did the trusted setup, which was on video.
The trusted information (supposedly) can't be given up now because nobody has it: it was ceremonially destroyed in interesting ways.
Re: Is Zcash’s encrypted blockchain Satoshi’s vision?
#33No. Two words. Trusted setup. Monero is way closer to Satoshi's vision, up to and including having an unknown inventor.
Mimblewimble [0] is a radically different approach to privacy and fungibility, making all transactions look alike. [0] http://mimblewimble.cash/
This is a cool project. Thanks for sharing the link. I'll totally buy/mine some GRIN when it comes out.
Things I like so far:
1) Solves privacy and scaling in a single elegant stroke.
2) Inventors seem to be anonymous. I didn't try too hard to identify them but Tom Elvis Jedusor is the French name of Lord Voldemort. This is an important feature for privacy focused coins and for cryptocurrency as a political statement (not just as a technology).
3) The website, by eschewing flashy web2.0 design and and buzzwords, clearly sets itself apart from the typical "lets get rich quick" coin. Although I am disappointed the white paper isn't done in LaTeX.
Reasons I'm skeptical (perhaps you can address these):
1) Missed the boat on first mover advantage. Monero seems to solve the privacy problem good enough. Perhaps it is unreasonable to expect people to completely swap over to a new coin whenever there's an advance in tech. Especially when word of the new coin has to spread through grass roots instead of a centralized mechanism.
2) Elliptic curve crypto is vulnerable to quantum computers. IMO this is a ticking time bomb.
3) Expanding on point 2, bitcoin intentionally made a habit of layering "proven" crypto methods on top of each other. Eg both SHA256 and RIPEMD160 hash functions are used so that if a weakness is found in one hash the other is still ok. So far as I can tell mimblewimble has a single point of failure (elliptic curve cryptography).
Re: Is Zcash’s encrypted blockchain Satoshi’s vision?
#34Someone explain this part to me:
> I would be happy if Zcash and Bitcoin could serve as a gateway from an unstable currency (Venezuelan Bolivar) to a stable currency (EURO/USD)
How would this actually happen? Who is on the other side of this transaction? Who would want to cash out their Bitcoin in Venezuelan bolivar?
I assume the Bitcoin trades that actually occur in Venezuela are for USD and black-market goods, not for bolivar.
Re: Is Zcash’s encrypted blockchain Satoshi’s vision?
#35When Zooko says that Zcash "is a kind of money that doesn’t come from any government or company" he is only 90% correct...
Re: Is Zcash’s encrypted blockchain Satoshi’s vision?
#36That's a highly insulting question. The Zcash guys are working together with JP Morgan. Maybe you should take a look at the genesis block of bitcoin, in case you don't know what it is about.
Re: Is Zcash’s encrypted blockchain Satoshi’s vision?
#37No. Two words. Trusted setup. Monero is way closer to Satoshi's vision, up to and including having an unknown inventor.
The trusted setup is not as bad as those two words make it sound without any context: 1. All people present in the trusted setup would have to be colluding or be compromised to cause an issue. 2. Some of these people have reason to make the currency succeed, because they own large amounts of zcash. 3. Some show the lengths they went to to prevent compromise: https://petertodd.org/2016/cypherpunk-desert-bus-zcash-trus…
The trusted setup is not necessarily an issue in practice, but it's something that Bitcoin was explicitly created to avoid and that makes it rather absurd to describe Zcash as "Satoshi's vision". Arguably it has as much or more in common with the older pre-Bitcoin cryptocurrencies than with Bitcoin.
Re: Is Zcash’s encrypted blockchain Satoshi’s vision?
#38Someone explain this part to me: > I would be happy if Zcash and Bitcoin could serve as a gateway from an unstable currency (Venezuelan Bolivar) to a stable currency (EURO/USD) How would this actually happen? Who is on the other side of this transaction? Who would want to cash out their Bitcoin in Venezuelan bolivar? I assume the Bitcoin trades that actually occur in Venezuela are for USD and black-market goods, not…
Presumably one might want to trade the BTC for bolivar to immediately spend them somewhere?
Re: Is Zcash’s encrypted blockchain Satoshi’s vision?
#39Is it just me or are more and more stories which look like fluff pieces for ZCash coming up on the HN frontpage? If they were a startup, I'd guess they were prepping for an IPO/acquisition. Most of them have titles with rhetorical questions, and come across as marketing pieces more than anything else. Really weird.
Along the same line, you get public endorsements and comments from people like Snowden and Assange.
ZCash, as opposed to f.e. Monero, is a private company and consciously spending time, money and effort on brand-building and PR.
Nothing really weird with that IMO.
Re: Is Zcash’s encrypted blockchain Satoshi’s vision?
#40When Zooko says that Zcash "is a kind of money that doesn’t come from any government or company" he is only 90% correct...
80% for the first 4 years. 90% "eventually"