These public transactions do not reveal user identities in an overt manner: the only identifiers an outside observer can access from the blockchain are public addresses. However, through the efforts of data scientists and law enforcement over recent years, the methods of blockchain analysis have been developed to the point where an interested party can fairly reliably connect a public address on a blockchain to the real-world identity of its owner, essentially making private transactions impossible.
There are other privacy coins on the market, like Monero, where 100% of all transactions are anonymous. However, Zcash is interesting in that you can choose whether to send a normal transaction or an anonymous transaction. This is achieved by using a technology known as a zk-SNARK.
Just like Bitcoin, Zcash uses Proof of Work mining in order to secure the network. However, while Bitcoin uses a SHA-256 algorithm, Zcash uses something different, the Equihash algorithm. Unlike Bitcoin where ASIC miners (specialized, expensive, and powerful mining devices) dominate, the Equihash algorithm attempts to discourage mining with ASICs.
For answers, I traveled up to Columbia University to the lab of Eran Tromer, a computer scientist at the Zcash company who co-invented its cryptographic protocol. Tromer is at Columbia for a year as a visiting researcher, but his home base is the Tel Aviv University School of Computer Science where he is a member of the faculty and the director of the Laboratory for Experimental Information Security (LEISec) at the Checkpoint Institute for Information Security.
A crypto exchange (or cryptocurrency exchange) is a marketplace where buyers and sellers trade cryptocurrencies. Just like regular stock exchanges, a cryptocurrency exchange serves as a middleman who sets the market price at which an equal number of buyers and sellers can be found.
Many cryptocurrencies will retain value somewhere in the world, even if only on the collector market or for an intermediary platform to exchange value. Many believe Zcash will be one of those cryptos and they have a strong case backing them.
"I think we're entering an era where there's going to be a competition of monies. Because of the printing of fiat money and the depreciated value. There will be a competition of money and Bitcoin is part of that competition but they're will be many monies."
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