let's travel back to 2013 to understand Z cache.The precursor to Z cache started when Zoo COO Wilcox.
began worrying about the privacy of Bitcoin transactions back in 2013 problem as zoo goo side was that Bitcoin didn't provide privacy
for its transactions Bitcoin lists all transactions on a public blockchain
while you don't have to give personally identifiable information in order to open a Bitcoin wallet all the Bitcoin going to and coming from your wallet can be tracked looking at the web of transactions around your wallet someone could potentially learn a lot about you and who you do business with Wilcox's original idea in 2013 was called zero coin.
it was a place where Bitcoin users could deposit combined split and withdraw Bitcoin into new wallets this had the effect of obscuring the transaction history of the coins after a while however the zero point iime realized there was a demand for a truly private cryptocurrency working with cryptographers in the US and Israel the zero point iime developed the zero cash protocol a system
for private transactions on top of the zero cash protocol they launched a new cryptocurrency called Z cash. Z cash is the new cryptocurrency launched in 2016 with the mission of anonymous transactions Z cash differs from Bitcoin and that transactions can't be traced on the Z cash network the zero cash protocols core functionality is the ability to conceal the sender and the recipient in a transaction.
this is accomplished by using something called a zero knowledge proof an advanced piece of cryptography that allows Z cash miners to verify transactions without knowing anything about the transactions contents zero knowledge proof involves showing that .
without revealing the details of the statement for instance imagine Mary and Adam
want to conduct a transaction on the network. The miners on the network
will need to verify the transaction so Marianne Adam use a private key
to protect the transaction information for simplicity let's imagine their private key is the number (17) here's how the zero knowledge transaction would work one the miners need to verify the transaction but they don't know its content so they send Mary a code for example 22 Mary adds 22 to her private key 17 and she gets a total of 39 she sends 39 to Adam Adam subtracts the private key 17 from 39 and he finds 22 he then sends 22 to the verifier the verifier then can clearly see that Mary and Adam share a private key and have both authorized the transaction however the verifier doesn't know the contents of the transaction.
the breakthrough for the zero cash protocol was the creation of ZK snarks
a way of verifying a transaction without revealing any of the information inside that transaction ZK snarks takes zero knowledge proof on the next level
because they're non interactive using ZK snarks in our example above Mary Adam and the verifier wouldn't need to interact online in order to prove and verify the transaction because verifiers don't need to know the details of a transaction in order to know it's true the Z cash blockchain ledger doesn't have to include identifiable information.
the keystone of the entire Z cash architecture if someone knew lambda that person could generate counterfeit proofs
this would undermine the entire Z cash system as that person could submit fake transactions or counterfeit Z cash tokens.
the simplest way to take care of that problem was to create a public private key pair
the public parameters on Z cash are built into the system and everyone can see them these public parameters are a reflection of the original private key in order to eliminate the possibility of fake transactions the creators of Z cash destroyed the original private key
after they launched the network the creation of Z cash involved a ceremony that compiled the public parameters behind the ZK snarks six different computers each compiled a part of the final algorithm after putting the six parts together the computers were wiped and physically destroyed with a blowtorch however
if the original ceremony was not fully destroyed or someone somehow recorded the ceremony then the security of the entire network is in jeopardy the possibility that those computers were not fully destroyed or the original ceremony was somehow recorded is called
toxic waste any byproducts of the original private key are considered part of the toxic waste product.
the whole Z cash system relies on successfully containing and destroying that toxic waste this concept of money having inherent value regardless of its history is called fungibility and it's an incredibly important quality for a currency to have the basic idea behind fungibility is that one person's currency is just as good as
another's before accepting a coin a store owner shouldn't need to look up the history of the coin to see if it has been involved in shady transactions the coin itself holds its value regardless of what it has been used for in the past the Z cash blockchain is very similar to the Bitcoin blockchain in terms of block creations and token issuance the total coin supply will be 21 million tokens issued over 131 years like Bitcoin.
however new blocks are created every two-and-a-half minutes as opposed to bitcoins ten-minute block time and Z cash offers bigger block rewards like Bitcoin Z cash uses proof-of-work to power
its blockchain so mining is possible however Z cash also implements many of the same anti ASIC
provisions as aetherium to prevent huge mining operations with upgraded hardware another key difference is that Z cash was established as a private company not a non-profit
while the developers insist this is the best way for the currency to develop and grow long term some voices in the community are skeptical of the decision to create a privately held company in 2016 z cash raised two million dollars in
private funding to help with the development before the launch those investors received equity in the private company in the exchange the Z cash Genesis block
was mined on the 28th of October in 2016 and Z cash has traded on most major crypto currency exchanges ever since to
make money and sustain ongoing development the company behind Z cash takes 10% of the mining reward for every block that is mine many of the community have also criticized that decision calling it a tax on mining and discourage miners from joining Z cash while Z caches use of ZK snarks and other advances in cryptography is cool and cutting edge some experts wonder if the cutting edge algorithms are secure members of the bitcoins core development team have called the cryptography behind Z cash highly experimental it's entirely possible that a weakness exists in the Z cash infrastructure that could go undetected for a long time the basic problem is that if you can find a way to crack Z caches ZK snark algorithm then you can create transactions out of thin air since you don't have to provide sender or receiver information in a zero knowledge proof you could essentially create new coins and deposit them in your account as long as you figured out a way to fool the verifying nodes on the network as we discussed earlier if someone was able to recreate the private key lambda from the original ceremony they could counterfeit Z cash as such you have to trust ZK caches founders and believe that the original team of six computers that held the shards of the original snark parameters were destroyed completely you also have to believe that the original ceremony wasn't key logged screen captured or videotaped I don't know Z cache is far from the only privacy centred coin on the market the biggest Z cache competitor is Manero a coin that uses a completely different set of cryptography to guarantee the privacy of transactions it still remains to be seen which of these currencies will eventually win out as the preferred privacy coin.
