Freedom of expression comes in many forms. One of them is the ability to send value to another person or business regardless of location or intent. Current financial privacy models are based on centralized systems which historically limit inclusion to the global market and are susceptible to compromise and potentially unlawful subpoenas, as highlighted in a recent lawsuit regarding surveillance on donors to Barrett Brown’s legal defense fund.
Bitcoin was the first step in opening up opportunities for the unbanked all around the world but has little to offer in terms of user privacy. Launched on October 28, 2016, Zcash is the first open, permissionless financial system employing zero-knowledge security, allowing users and businesses to manage their own funds and maintain control over who sees them.
Zcash is a fork of Bitcoin with privacy improvements based on advanced zero-knowledge cryptography. Users have the ability to encrypt transaction data like sender, receiver, amount and a memo field before being stored in the Zcash blockchain. The zero-knowledge implementation, specifically zk-SNARKs (zero-knowledge Succinct Non-interactive ARguments of Knowledge) allows nodes in the decentralized network to verify transactions without knowing the data itself. Anyone in the world can use Zcash to make private payments by submitting transactions to the decentralized network of Zcash nodes.
The team of scientists, engineers and advisors includes all of the authors of the Zerocash protocol, most of the creators of the Zerocoin protocol, and leading researchers of zk-SNARKs themselves.
The team of Z.cash believes that personal privacy is necessary for core human values like dignity, intimacy, and morality. The goal is to make Z.cash the premier platform for commerce – secure, borderless, and available equally to every person on our planet.