Thoughts on Zcash?

[WoJJ78]

Hi guys,

What are your thoughts on Zcash and its zero-knowledge proof construction? I've read that there are already a few big investors backing up this project.

Cheers!

[st0at]

Ethereum can be programmed to do anything including anonymity so no more need for specialized coins.

Ethereum will eventually provide all needs. Other coins pale in comparison.

Ethereum is already a mature produce with $millions spent on development. Z.cash is immature and not yet ready for prime time. Ethereum's price and market cap are going up and now #2 market cap.

Ethereum will steamroll everything including Bitcoin.

Sell your XMR and DRK for ETH.

[Fuserleer]

Ethereum can be programmed to do anything including anonymity so no more need for specialized coins.

Ethereum will eventually provide all needs. Other coins pale in comparison.

Ethereum is already a mature produce with $millions spent on development. Z.cash is immature and not yet ready for prime time. Ethereum's price and market cap are going up and now #2 market cap.

Ethereum will steamroll everything including Bitcoin.

Sell your XMR and DRK for ETH.

Actually ETH can't do true anonymity.

Anonymity is something that has to be in the core protocols, you can't build it on top with bolt on scripts or DAPs without some centralization.

As for everything else ETH related, well its all up for grabs

Moving onto Z.Cash, its the real deal, I've been over that paper a number of times now (bedtime reading ). 

Don't ask me to comment on Z.Cash v's Monero/Dash/et. al, ring signatures never interested me due to the 3rd party requirement, so I haven't researched them at all.

[tokeweed]

^ Yup.  This is the real deal indeed. 

[CoinHoarder]

^ Yup.  This is the real deal indeed.  

I forgot to include this coin on my "next mega pump" list.  

I have been waiting years for this coin! Although, their disclaimer for the alpha is kind of scary... I guess we should wait for the beta?

[tokeweed]

^ Yup.  This is the real deal indeed.  

I forgot to include this coin on my "next mega pump" list.  

I have been waiting years for this coin! Although, their disclaimer for the alpha is kind of scary... I guess we should wait for the beta?

No seriously.  The tech their team is trying to develop will make Dash and Monero look second rate.

[Fuserleer]

^ Yup.  This is the real deal indeed.  

I forgot to include this coin on my "next mega pump" list.  

I have been waiting years for this coin! Although, their disclaimer for the alpha is kind of scary... I guess we should wait for the beta?

No seriously.  The tech their team is trying to develop will make Dash and Monero look second rate.

Yup, its proper anonymity.  As in direct anonymous payments, no mixers, no 3rd parties, nada.

My only real issue is that it might have difficulty scaling and I have some performance concerns that will come into effect if it achieves such larger scales.

For example verify time of a POUR is 5.4ms on an i7-4770, which gives a max processing performance on that CPU of about 200 per second per thread (I'm assuming multi-threading POUR verification is trivial) ignoring other overheads such as IO.  It might take some time to sync up a couple million transactions.

Mobile device support will likely be a no-no too, as the POUR process takes about 2 minutes to run on that i7, so mobile devices will be 10x at least.  Punchy hardware only please for that

Im not aware of any performance improvements recently though (and I haven't really had the time to check up), so if anyone knows of any information, I'd appreciate a link/reference to it.

[TechorMarketing]

^ Yup.  This is the real deal indeed.  

I forgot to include this coin on my "next mega pump" list.  

I have been waiting years for this coin! Although, their disclaimer for the alpha is kind of scary... I guess we should wait for the beta?

No seriously.  The tech their team is trying to develop will make Dash and Monero look second rate.

You might want to check your facts. Many smart people (and ZeroCash team members) are watching what Monero is doing with RingCT right now:

[CoinHoarder]

You might want to check your facts. Many smart people (and ZeroCash team members) are watching what Monero is doing with RingCT right now:

.... Post from your actual account and then maybe we will consider what you have to say. Obvious sock puppet is obvious.

Even still, a re-tweet hardly constitutes as an endorsement. I am sure he stands behind Zerocash tech and was genuinely interested in RingCT for academic purposes. Pretty much all of the Zcash guys hail from academia.

This is why I never seriously supported Monero. I have claimed repeatedly over the past couple years that better technology would come along and render it useless. I recently invested a little into Monero, because its marketing on these forums is on point, but it is really just a safety net in case Zcash crashes and burns. As long as the initial parameters for Zcash can be generated in a transparent manner, then I have no doubts it will take over the "anon coin" market.

[tokeweed]

^ Yup.  This is the real deal indeed.  

I forgot to include this coin on my "next mega pump" list.  

I have been waiting years for this coin! Although, their disclaimer for the alpha is kind of scary... I guess we should wait for the beta?

No seriously.  The tech their team is trying to develop will make Dash and Monero look second rate.

You might want to check your facts. Many smart people (and ZeroCash team members) are watching what Monero is doing with RingCT right now:

So?  And even if they did, they'd make XMR and Dash look second rate and amateur, right from development to marketing.  And I don't mean that with any malice or hold something personal to DASH or Monero (holding some XMR right now actually).  It's just I see Zcash and think it's way more professional right from the start.

[st0at]

Ethereum can be programmed to do anything including anonymity so no more need for specialized coins.

Actually ETH can't do true anonymity.

Anonymity is something that has to be in the core protocols, you can't build it on top with bolt on scripts or DAPs without some centralization.

A Turing complete script can read and write data on the block chain, so in theory it can do anything a block chain core protocol can do. Of course performance and other issues may be not be optimal. Yet one can reason that the script can be hard or soft forked into the core protocol to improve efficiency if there is popular demand for the feature.

Z.cash's problem is that a more popular altcoin can steal their technology.

One feature altcoins are a dead end.

The future belongs to the altcoin which can swallow everything and spread adoption because of being multi-faceted. Currency is the most widely used medium-of-exchange.

Academics are not usually savvy businessmen.

It's just I see Zcash and think it's way more professional right from the start.

11% of the coins to be paid to the foundation or developers. Thus the world has an incentive to fork their coin.

Buying the launch hype though might be a great speculation trade.

[monsterer]

A Turing complete script can read and write data on the block chain, so in theory it can do anything a block chain core protocol can do.

An EVM app must obey the rules of the core blockchain protocol; it cannot rewrite them.

[st0at]

A Turing complete script can read and write data on the block chain, so in theory it can do anything a block chain core protocol can do.

An EVM app must obey the rules of the core blockchain protocol; it cannot rewrite them.

I wrote "in theory". If the scripts are not truly Turing complete, then it is possible the core protocol has some limitations which would preclude implementing certain features. Whether or not Z.cash can or can not be implemented in Ethereum's scripting model is unknown since Ethereum has not been finalized.

Just remember, "Ethereum can do anything because it has scripting". 80/20. Remain focused. Buy the dips.

[monsterer]

I wrote "in theory". If the scripts are not truly Turing complete, then it is possible the core protocol has some limitations which would preclude implementing certain features. Whether or not Z.cash can or can not be implemented in Ethereum's scripting model is unknown since Ethereum has not been finalized.

Just remember, "Ethereum can do anything because it has scripting". 80/20. Remain focused. Buy the dips.

The core protocol contains the functionality to transfer ether; you cannot rewrite that from the EVM, which you would need to do to add anonymity.

[DaveyJones]

You might want to check your facts. Many smart people (and ZeroCash team members) are watching what Monero is doing with RingCT right now:

.... Post from your actual account and then maybe we will consider what you have to say. Obvious sock puppet is obvious.

Even still, a re-tweet hardly constitutes as an endorsement. I am sure he stands behind Zerocash tech and was genuinely interested in RingCT for academic purposes. Pretty much all of the Zcash guys hail from academia.

This is why I never seriously supported Monero. I have claimed repeatedly over the past couple years that better technology would come along and render it useless. I recently invested a little into Monero, because its marketing on these forums is on point, but it is really just a safety net in case Zcash crashes and burns. As long as the initial parameters for Zcash can be generated in a transparent manner, then I have no doubts it will take over the "anon coin" market.

Isn´t that even a critical thing to achieve before we can even start to cheer for Zcash?

[st0at]

The core protocol contains the functionality to transfer ether; you cannot rewrite that from the EVM, which you would need to do to add anonymity.

In theory Turing complete block chain scripting can script new altcoins.

If truly open ended scripting is plausible, then everything is subsumed. Hmmm.

[monsterer]

In theory Turing complete block chain scripting can script new altcoins.

If truly open ended scripting is plausible, then everything is subsumed. Hmmm.

You can only create things on top of etherium, you cannot replace etherium itself.

edit: Analogy: facebook apps run on top of facebook, they cannot replace facebook itself.

[Snail2]

A Turing complete script can read and write data on the block chain, so in theory it can do anything a block chain core protocol can do. Of course performance and other issues may be not be optimal. Yet one can reason that the script can be hard or soft forked into the core protocol to improve efficiency if there is popular demand for the feature.

In theory. You know an old joke comes in mind about "in theory". Let me share it:

A little boy asks his father, "What's the difference between 'theory' and 'practice'"?

The father thinks for a minute and then tells him to go ask his mother and his sister if they would have sex with any many for a million dollars and then report back to him their answers. The little boy asks him mom first. "Mom, would you have sex with any man for a million dollars?"

She thinks about it and then answers, "Yes, I would."

The little boy asks his sister, "Sis, would you have sex with any man for a million dollars?"
She doesn't hesitate, "Yes, I would."

The little boy runs up to his dad.
Dad asks, "What did they say?"

The little boy says, "They both said they would".

The father says,"There you go, son; in theory, we're millionaires, but in practice, we live with a couple of sluts."

[st0at]

In theory Turing complete block chain scripting can script new altcoins.

If truly open ended scripting is plausible, then everything is subsumed. Hmmm.

You can only create things on top of etherium, you cannot replace etherium itself.

edit: Analogy: facebook apps run on top of facebook, they cannot replace facebook itself.

Turing completeness implies unbounded recursion.

If it was indeed Turing complete, it can replace itself.

Nevermind the inconvenient fundamentals. Stay focused on to da moon.

[smooth]

^ Yup.  This is the real deal indeed. 

I forgot to include this coin on my "next mega pump" list. 

I have been waiting years for this coin! Although, their disclaimer for the alpha is kind of scary... I guess we should wait for the beta?

No seriously.  The tech their team is trying to develop will make Dash and Monero look second rate.

Yup, its proper anonymity.  As in direct anonymous payments, no mixers, no 3rd parties, nada.

There are no mixers or third parties in Monero. You construct the transactions entirely on your own (can even be done offline). Dash does use a masternode to coordinate coinjoin transactions, which is sort of like a mixer, although it can't steal your coins.

Functionally the main difference between Monero and Zcash (esp. after RingCT is integrated) is that Zcash has a larger anonymity set at the level of individual transactions (all previous users) than Monero (some randomly chosen subset of previous users). In practice the difference is likely somewhat narrower, but difficult to fully characterize.

The trade off for that difference in anonymity set is a wide gap in efficiency, a wide gap in cryptographic complexity and maturity, probably a gap in implementation maturity, the trusted setup, some functional limitations, and some stronger cryptographic assumptions (meaning more ways it can break, but not necessarily to a degree that is a huge concern).

Anyway given that Monero already uses cryptography rather than mixing, the option to swap out the cryptography with zerocash exists, just as regular ring signatures are now being swapped out with RingCT. There are no current plans to do so for the above reasons, but if zerocash techniques become more mature and trusted (and perhaps efficient), and it becomes clear that's what users want, it could be done at some point.

tldr, these are both serious, credible cryptographic techniques to deliver private transactions, with different advantages and disadvantages.