ZCash vs Monero - privacy

[adam440]

Hello,
How do these two coins compare in terms of privacy? Is any of them better than other? And I'm assuming that Monero team will really implement feature (I don't know how it's called), which will hide the amount transacted. So both coins will hide all the metadata. However, I know that ZCash is pretty intense in terms of computer power (and I'm not talking just about Equihash, but mainly about zk-snarks). But are there any other differences in terms of anonymity?

[gentil]

You can't trust Zcash. Its a private company with closed code.

For all you know the NSA could have see every transaction and who made it.

Monero has open source code and far more trustworthy.

The only problem with Monero is they are awful at marketing!

[adam440]

Well, I'm more interested in the actual technology behind it. I think it's called Zerocoin protocol or something like that. Obviously, closed source is a huge concern for me but I don't want to throw out the interesting idea just because one concrete implementation (ZCash).

[santaclaws]

I don't get it, if Zcash is closed source then how did all the zcash clones come into existence? How did the exchanges compile the daemon for zcash? I don't know much about it but I doubt its closed source.

Monero is better anyhow. Zcash has a developer fee the miners have to pay.

[obit33]

Some interesting reads:

https://moneroforcash.com/monero-vs-dash-vs-zcash-vs-bitcoinmixers.php

http://weuse.cash/2016/06/09/btc-xmr-zcash/

http://www.financemagnates.com/cryptocurrency/interview/darknet-cryptocurrency-showdown-an-unbiased-comparison-of-zcash-vs-monero/

best regards

[Joel_Jantsen]

Hello,
How do these two coins compare in terms of privacy? Is any of them better than other? And I'm assuming that Monero team will really implement feature (I don't know how it's called), which will hide the amount transacted. So both coins will hide all the metadata. However, I know that ZCash is pretty intense in terms of computer power (and I'm not talking just about Equihash, but mainly about zk-snarks). But are there any other differences in terms of anonymity?

Monero over Z-Cash any-day.
There are two types of people :

1.Z-cash supporters : Average minded burger and fries eating fat Joes who don't know shit about cryptos and they were the first few buyers of Z-cash suffering already.Being anonymous is their least concern.

2.Monero Supporters : Elite gentlemen of the society who believe in the power of anonymity and decentralization.Society refers to these gentlemen as smart individuals who hold the key to the future.

[sezecastronomine]

You can't trust Zcash. Its a private company with closed code.

For all you know the NSA could have see every transaction and who made it.

Monero has open source code and far more trustworthy.

The only problem with Monero is they are awful at marketing!

sorry, what?
to be able to run zcash you either have to download from their public git repo and compile as per instructions or you add their source to apt and just trust their pre-built elf.
if you go with the second option, often most convenient, you're placing your trust in the maintainer of the package but that doesn't mean the code is closed.
the only thing unknown and questionable about zcash is if the purge of the toxic waste actually took place and none of the participants went "eve".

monero has a solid development team. they shouldn't be expected to waste time on marketing, when they have a code base to maintain, build upon and secure.
maybe you and all the others who continue to complain about this should finally pony up and market xmr to the world?

[adam440]

OK, slight change of topic. As I said, I'm more interested in the technical side. So the question is more like what's the difference between ring signatures and zero knowledge proofs. And again, especially in terms of privacy (which one is more anonymous).

[Ayers]

OK, slight change of topic. As I said, I'm more interested in the technical side. So the question is more like what's the difference between ring signatures and zero knowledge proofs. And again, especially in terms of privacy (which one is more anonymous).

as far as i know zcash is more anonymous, but both offer high privacy level and untraceable payment , this is useful
https://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/41vg68/monero_vs_zcash_eli5_fundamental_differences/?st=j0tou48a&sh=d813520e

[Red Fish]

Monero is quite good in terms of privacy, which is already popular all over. Monero expanding is because of coin exceptional privacy. Regarding Zcash I never heard of Zcash good privacy yet. Zcash is popular, because of its simple mining and not because of its privacy.

[sezecastronomine]

OK, slight change of topic. As I said, I'm more interested in the technical side. So the question is more like what's the difference between ring signatures and zero knowledge proofs. And again, especially in terms of privacy (which one is more anonymous).

sorry, the fud just had to be addressed.

if zksnarks work as outlined, they offer far greater privacy with state of the art cryptography, see https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2014/11/27/zero-knowledge-proofs-illustrated-primer/.  
zcash stable hasn't even reached its first birthday, is the first real world application with mass public exposure using zero knowledge proofs and is being used more as speculation instead of day-to-day purchases.
we still need to give it time to mature and be torn apart by others to prove its worth before giving it the go ahead.

in the meantime, i can buy things with monero, walk the blockchain and have no clue as to what tx went where and how much, seeing as all is private by default.
with zcash where you have to opt-in to use a shielded address, its had this knock on effect where there are more users sending tx's in the clear, which impacts the anonymity set of the rest of the network who choose to shield; what part of "anonymity in numbers" did zcash not understand?
this is precisely where monero shines, all tx's are sacrosanct, fungibility is king.

ring sigs partly remind me of the -R flag from openpgp, probably due to the brute like manner in which it iterates the public keys.