Zcash is a digital currency with strong privacy features. Transactions are shielded by default, making them private from outside observers. Zcash also offers the option to make transparent transactions, which are public like Bitcoin transactions.
Zcash is based on peer-reviewed cryptographic research, and built by a security-specialized engineering team on an open source platform based on Bitcoin Core's battle-tested codebase. Our goal is to create a cryptocurrency that improves upon Bitcoin, and that can scale and be adopted by mainstream users worldwide.
Zcash offers total payment confidentiality, while still maintaining a decentralized network using a public blockchain. Unlike Bitcoin, Zcash transactions automatically hide the sender, recipient, and value of all transactions on the blockchain. Only those with the correct view key can see the contents. Users have complete control and can opt-in to provide others with their view key at their discretion.
All shielded Zcash transactions are recorded on a public blockchain, but the sender, recipient, and amount of a transaction may remain private. Zcash uses advanced cryptographic techniques, known as zero-knowledge proofs, to secure the network. These constructions allow the network to maintain a secure ledger of balances without revealing the parties or amounts involved. Instead of publicly demonstrating spend-authority and transaction values, the transacting parties jointly generate a random value that commits them to the transaction, but from which it is mathematically infeasible to derive the transaction details. Shielded transactions are fully anonymous.
Transactions on the Zcash blockchain can be verified as valid even when encrypted. The content of shielded transactions, however, remains hidden from public view.
To improve fungibility, all coins in circulation can optionally be mixed together without loss of value. This hides the history of those coins from outside observers, so that everyone can transact with equal confidence that their coins are of equal value.
Zcash privacy crypto is a decentralized and open-source cryptocurrency that offers privacy and selective transparency of transactions. Zcash payments are published on a public blockchain, but the sender, recipient, and amount of a transaction may remain private.
Zcash is based on the peer-reviewed research of cryptographers at Johns Hopkins University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Tel Aviv University, and Academic Center of Tel Aviv-Yaffo. The Zcash company is supported by investors including Pantera Capital, Electric Coin Company (ECC), and Digital Currency Group.
Zcash is built on the existing Bitcoin codebase and uses the same proof-of-work algorithm. While all transactions are recorded on a public blockchain, information such as the sender, recipient, and amount of a transaction remain private.
Zcash offers two types of addresses: transparent and shielded. Transparent addresses are like Bitcoin addresses and start with a "t". Shielded addresses start with a "z" and provide end-to-end encryption of transaction data.
Zcash uses a zero-knowledge proof construction called a zk-SNARK, developed by cryptographers at MIT, the Technion, and Tel Aviv University. This construction allows the network to maintain a secure ledger of balances without revealing the parties or amounts involved.
Shielded transactions are fully anonymous and hide the sender, recipient, and amount of a transaction from public view. However, all shielded transactions are recorded on the public blockchain.
