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

211–220 of 285 posts

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

#211

Post by tlrobinson »

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…

> Another altcoin.

The vast majority of "altcoins" are minor tweaks on Bitcoin and a couple others, they're not at all technically interesting, and I think it's an open secret they're pump-and-dump schemes.

I don't know much about ZCash, but I know it's pretty unfair to dismiss it as "another altcoin". The people behind it are well respected [1][2] and it makes use of novel technology.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_D._Green

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zooko_Wilcox-O%27Hearn

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

#212

Post by tlrobinson »

throwaway2016a wrote: post #179
CiPHPerCoder wrote: post #161

There's a general attitude to some of the comments here. "Another altcoin." "I wouldn't weigh the odds that this specific system really lasting more than 4 years out especially high." ZCash isn't just another fly-by-night cryptocurrency scam. It's a serious engineering effort that was carefully undertaken by some very well-known cryptography and security experts. Matthew Green Daira Hopwood Taylor Hornby Ian Meiers Z…

> ZCash isn't just another fly-by-night cryptocurrency scam. It's a serious engineering effort that was carefully undertaken by some very well-known cryptography and security experts. The implication that most of the alt coins are like this is unfortunate. Sure, a very many of the alt coins are just bitcoin clones with a different genesis block trying to get rich but many of the alt coins have had great minds behind…

Out of curiosity, which alt coins would you put in the latter category ("have had great minds behind them")?

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

#213

Post by zepolen »

tlrobinson wrote: post #211
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…

> Another altcoin. The vast majority of "altcoins" are minor tweaks on Bitcoin and a couple others, they're not at all technically interesting, and I think it's an open secret they're pump-and-dump schemes. I don't know much about ZCash, but I know it's pretty unfair to dismiss it as "another altcoin". The people behind it are well respected [1][2] and it makes use of novel technology. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wik…

I can't tell if you're trolling or not.

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

#214

Post by DINKDINK »

rspeer wrote: post #126
mappum wrote: post #101

I am long Zcash: * The founder is Zooko Wilcox-O'Hearn, creator of Zooko's triangle, the BLAKE2 hash function, Tahoe-LAFS, and former employee at MojoNation (an early attempt at cryptocurrency/P2P filesharing where another employee, Beam Cohen, went on to create Bittorrent). He knows a thing or two about decentralization/P2P. * This project is NOT a trivial Bitcoin clone with only a new proof-of-work swapped in. The…

I can't stand the proliferation of proof-of-work cryptocurrencies in a world where people don't have to pay for the externalities of the energy they use. Let me know when there's a cryptocurrency based on proof-of-carbon-sequestration or something.

>I can't stand the proliferation of proof-of-work cryptocurrencies in a world where people don't have to pay for the externalities of the energy they use.

Not a fare comparison; all of visa/mc's servers have externalities, all of the money trucks driving around physically collecting cash have carbon externalities, building ATMs and printing plastic credit cards have carbon externalities, building banks and running them have carbon externalities.

You have to compare the relative carbon impact. Cryptocurrency miners obviate all of those things.

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

#215

Post by JauntyHatAngle »

zepolen wrote: post #213
tlrobinson wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Another altcoin. The vast majority of "altcoins" are minor tweaks on Bitcoin and a couple others, they're not at all technically interesting, and I think it's an open secret they're pump-and-dump schemes. I don't know much about ZCash, but I know it's pretty unfair to dismiss it as "another altcoin". The people behind it are well respected [1][2] and it makes use of novel technology. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wik…

I can't tell if you're trolling or not.

Huh? What part of his post is trolling?

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

#216

Post by tlrobinson »

zepolen wrote: post #213
tlrobinson wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Another altcoin. The vast majority of "altcoins" are minor tweaks on Bitcoin and a couple others, they're not at all technically interesting, and I think it's an open secret they're pump-and-dump schemes. I don't know much about ZCash, but I know it's pretty unfair to dismiss it as "another altcoin". The people behind it are well respected [1][2] and it makes use of novel technology. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wik…

I can't tell if you're trolling or not.

Not trolling. What makes you think I am?

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

#217

Post by CiPHPerCoder »

SubiculumCode wrote: post #210
kanzure wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An "attitude" pump, really? :) I was one of the first and most dismissive when bitcoin was released. I'm on record saying "yet another p2p currency piece of crap" one ~day after its January 2009 announcement and release. There are so many endless p2p currencies out there-- this was even the case when bitcoin was first launched-- so many that, frankly, any dismissive attitude is completely justified. You can't go arou…

I doubt that the majority of dismissive comments come from such an apparently informed perspective as your own. Many likely come from people who know a little, and who want to say something on HN, and (in true hipster fashion) take the safe route and trash the idea rather on vague hand waves, than sticking their necks out to support it. That is the attitude I believe was frustrating the grandparent.

> That is the attitude I believe was frustrating the grandparent.

Precisely.

kanzure: An informed criticism is valuable. Thank you for sharing yours.

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

#218

Post by aaron695 »

Ar-Curunir wrote: post #166
CiPHPerCoder wrote: post #161

There's a general attitude to some of the comments here. "Another altcoin." "I wouldn't weigh the odds that this specific system really lasting more than 4 years out especially high." ZCash isn't just another fly-by-night cryptocurrency scam. It's a serious engineering effort that was carefully undertaken by some very well-known cryptography and security experts. Matthew Green Daira Hopwood Taylor Hornby Ian Meiers Z…

This dismissive attitude infests HN; whenever some-one does something, the top comments are from people nit-picking and finding flaws with the work.

Are you being meta on purpose?

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

#219

Post by Ar-Curunir »

aminorex wrote: post #201
andirk wrote: post #133

I think the people behind a project mean a heck of a lot to the validity an integrity of the project. So if Zooko Wilcox et al are indeed respected in the P2P and security community, then I am interested in this.

You have to trust them, because if they cheat, they can print infinite zcash. I do not trust Israeli SIGINT people with my secrets.

So people like Matthew Green, Alessandro Chiesa, Madars Virza, Ian Miers and Christina Garman, none of whom are Israeli, had absolutely no say in how this project was constructed, right? Eli and Eran are just two members of a much larger research group. They most certainly did not "backdoor" ZCash.

There's skepticism, and then there's this stupid crap like your post. No technical foundation, no evidence, nothing, just FUD.

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

#220

Post by Ar-Curunir »

ojiikun wrote: post #190

This just sounds like a new clone of Dash (née darkcoin) but with pre-mine for the founders and without the cool proposal / voting system. Why would anyone buy into this?

Except this work is the result of many years of both theoretical and engineering advances in cryptography; if you can't take even the modicum of effort to read up on the subject matter, maybe you shouldn't be spouting bullshit?
Post reply on HN