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Is Zcash’s encrypted blockchain Satoshi’s vision?

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Re: Is Zcash’s encrypted blockchain Satoshi’s vision?

#21

Post by sowithit »

dangero wrote: post #17

The unfortunate thing to me about Zcash is that privacy is opt-in. It would be like if Signal was default no privacy, but then you could enable it per message if you wanted to send something secret. Governments could just ban you from turning the privacy on and we've already seen this happen with TOR. Opting into privacy "raises suspicion", and we need services where privacy is enabled by default. Monero does this.

It's just as possible to not use Monero's mix-ins as it is to use Zcash's transparent addresses. So no, Monero doesn't win here.

Re: Is Zcash’s encrypted blockchain Satoshi’s vision?

#22

Post by sowithit »

nubela wrote: post #12
JelteF wrote: post #9

Earlier 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…

Erm, #1 is not that far from being achieved. IIRC, that's just 6 people, guarding hundreds of millions of dollars. There lies the inherent problem with "trusted setup", why leave there a possibility of 6 people not colluding? That just isn't scientific or exhuastive. Just drop the IFs, go with Monero's method of RingCT. Beside, Monero's privacy is a working feature today, with no pre-mines, unlike ZCash.

It is not down to 6 people forever not colluding. It's down to 6 people not having colluded at one point in time in the past, each having been scrutinized during the procedure, with post-hoc inspection of the software and hardware. If those 6 people decided at any point after the procedure that they wanted to collude, then it would be too late for them to do so.

Essentially they each produced a private key, and if each of them revealed their private key to the same party then that party could derive a master private key that would allow them to (among other things) mint Zcash for free (privacy wouldn't be broken). Assuming that any one of the 6 did in fact destroy/corrupt his private key without revealing it, then the collusion opportunity is forever lost.

Re: Is Zcash’s encrypted blockchain Satoshi’s vision?

#23

Post by danieldrehmer »

zby wrote: post #18
aryehof wrote: post #10

My guess is that Satoshi's vision wasn't that Bitcoin would start a frenzy of "blockchain technology" endeavors that feature the movement of capital to promoters and investors, and between speculators.

I cannot find it now - but I am sure that he wrote somewhere about competing currencies and lateral inflation.

if you find a link for this, I bet many of us would love to read it

Re: Is Zcash’s encrypted blockchain Satoshi’s vision?

#24

Post by jancsika »

aryehof wrote: post #10

My guess is that Satoshi's vision wasn't that Bitcoin would start a frenzy of "blockchain technology" endeavors that feature the movement of capital to promoters and investors, and between speculators.

There's evidence the vision didn't include investors and speculators. The "generate coins" button in the old GUI depends on their absence. Even GPU mining made that button obsolete.

Re: Is Zcash’s encrypted blockchain Satoshi’s vision?

#25

Post by madmax108 »

Is 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.

Re: Is Zcash’s encrypted blockchain Satoshi’s vision?

#26

Post by sowithit »

kobeya wrote: post #15
q-base wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you elaborate on this flaw, or perhaps point to a link - especially with regards to Monero?

Here's a stack exchange question: https://monero.stackexchange.com/questions/2158/what-is-mone... TL;DR Monero requires every transaction input to include a "key image" (an elliptic curve point, looks like a public key). The key image is deterministically constructed from the actual coin being spent, without actually revealing which one it is. So making sure the chain never contains a repeated key image is sufficient…

Doesn't it scale? Isn't it the case that the Merkle tree holding all the shielded coins can be pruned just as easily as the Merkle tree storing Bitcoin transactions? Pruning either tree eliminates the information needed to verify the claimed owner of a coin in a pruned branch, correct?

Re: Is Zcash’s encrypted blockchain Satoshi’s vision?

#29

Post by sowithit »

madmax108 wrote: post #25

Is 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.

I actually found it interesting to read Zooko's opinions about the market opportunity (namely, replacing fiat currencies in countries where they are unstable) and why governments might not hate Zcash (namely, because transactions can contain identifying information as they are encrypted). I don't actually agree with him, and I question if he truly believes those answers, but I was interested to read his public opinions.

Re: Is Zcash’s encrypted blockchain Satoshi’s vision?

#30

Post by mercer »

JelteF wrote: post #9
IIAOPSW wrote: post #2

No. 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…

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?
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