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ZCash Will Be a Truly Anonymous Blockchain-Based Currency

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

#221

Post by cloudjacker »

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…

Hey there, I asked about some comparisons to cryptonote technologies, of which Monero is one, and I haven't gotten any real answers, would you like me to repost it under your thread? Or can you just find it in the comments

My understanding of the execution of Zcash is pretty clear, and it seems like a worse execution that existing technologies, especially cryptonote of which Monero is one. Am I trolling, or looking for a counterpoint? Do you understand how cryptonote technology works? The criticisms have been the exact same since 2014

Blockchain technologies are intended to be able to stand on their own without high profile names attached to them. ZCash is doing the opposite of that, and not even offering anything to make up for it. This invites criticism, let alone the product itself.

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

#222

Post by rspeer »

wyager wrote: post #206
rspeer wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Good luck getting anything like that into a cryptosystem. Do you actually understand the utility of proof-of-work? Whenever someone proposes something silly like "proof of recycling" or "proof of solar power" I can't imagine they do.

I understand the negative utility of proof-of-work. It takes useful resources and turns them into nothing.

I didn't claim it would be straightforward to make a cryptosystem whose mining process causes a benefit instead of a harm. I didn't claim I had such an idea. But let's rank some options in order of goodness:

1. Figure out a cryptocurrency with a real-world benefit

2. Don't use cryptocurrencies

3. Use cryptocurrencies

You may have chosen the worst option. I'm content with option #2.

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

#223

Post by rspeer »

DINKDINK wrote: post #214
rspeer wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

Have you compared the relative carbon impact? You're making it sound like the things you're "obviating" are on at all the same scale.

Visa et al. are incredibly efficient compared to Bitcoin. I heard a Bitcoin advocate point out that all it would take to make Bitcoin have enough throughput that everyone could use it is 1% of the power in the entire world.

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

#225

Post by bduerst »

VMG wrote: post #110
colanderman wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It incentivizes hoarding over spending, especially in the face of an expanding economy. Though to be fair, the rate at which new cryptocurrency pools are being created seems to more than keep up with the growth of the economy. Who needs the government to print money when anybody can?

> it incentivizes hoarding over spending, especially in the face of an expanding economy. That kind of macroeconomic analysis assumes that everybody already owns some amount of the currency. However in the new currency markets that are developing, you have to consider the incentive to even start accepting a currency. One that loses value over time is not attractive to the recipient.

>One that loses value over time is not attractive to the recipient.

Correction: One that changes value over time is not attractive to the recipient.

You can shine the deflationary currency as much as you'd like, but economists have a consensus on why the volatile behavior of set-supply currencies are inferior.

It's precisely why the world's major currencies don't use the gold standard, but honestly, this conversation repeats itself almost every time a deflationary cryptocurrency gets posted.

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

#226

Post by bduerst »

wyager wrote: post #208
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In respect of protection against civil forfeiture, how is it different from a regular bank account?

The government can very easily take money out of your bank account. Happened to me one time when the Texas Comptroller made a paperwork error. Even after they fixed it and refunded my money, Wells Fargo charged me $150 for "legal fees". That was a lot of fun.

Your problem is that you used Wells Fargo instead of a credit union.

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

#228

Post by bduerst »

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 don't know much about ZCash

ZCash has this ability to de-anonymize users through targeted blocks, and is a privately-held U.S.-based company that claims no liability for it's user's actions, meaning if subpoenaed they will [probably] turn over information.

They're also privately cashing in on 20% of all transaction fees.

Just because someone behind a project has credentials you respect doesn't mean we should ignore aspects of the project.

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

#229

Post by Ar-Curunir »

cloudjacker wrote: post #105
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…

What do you think about Cryptonote projects? Such as Monero, Boolberry, a variety of other similar networks Some advantages Cryptonote has that come to mind: - They are private by default. Zcash requires two states, a state analogous to bitcoin, and the anonymous zcash state which has to be explicitely opted into. Shadowcash also has this, but opted for ring signatures for the anonymous state (like cryptonote coins u…

CryptoNote doesn't look very scalable; if you want a large anonymity set, your transaction size grows linearly with the size of the set.

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

#230

Post by Ar-Curunir »

cloudjacker wrote: post #221
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…

Hey there, I asked about some comparisons to cryptonote technologies, of which Monero is one, and I haven't gotten any real answers, would you like me to repost it under your thread? Or can you just find it in the comments My understanding of the execution of Zcash is pretty clear, and it seems like a worse execution that existing technologies, especially cryptonote of which Monero is one. Am I trolling, or looking f…

Monero has a weaker security/performance tradeoff; it seems that if you want a large anonymity set then you have to pay for it with a large tx size. Zcash, on the other hand, has the entire blockchain as the anonymity set with no increase in tx size.
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