ZCASH - Genuinely Anonymous Altcoin

[Kepler_452b 77]

Sure you push, and you prove it by continuously repeating how good ZCash is and that we really need to use it. Over and over again. Are you even reading what you write?

 

Sit down, drink a cup of tea and wait it out.. soon we'll know if it's good, and if it is, I'll be glad to see if people can trust it.

 

That'd be my last word. I hope you're already making tea! <3

 

Have another joint and see if you can concentrate on what I actually said. I said that if it delivers what it promises the digital world really needs it.  And for the record, I have not said anybody should trust it in advance of proving itself. I, personally, have just about convinced myself to buy a small mining contract. There's definitely risk in that and I wouldn't encourage anyone to take a risk without understanding it. But I like the idea of supporting a really promising technology created by some very smart people. And, yes, if it works out, I like the idea of getting a financial payback for taking the risk.

 

But your timing on the tea thing is amazing LOL. I just brewed a pot of marvelous keemun from China....yummmy   If the contract works out I'll send you some keemun with the 1 BTC that zhang888 will owe me Cheers.

[zhang888 1066]

In the foreseeable near future, the only useful application you can use this project right now is to anonymise your Bitcoins.

That means, finding 2 independent exchanges, exchanging Bitcoin to Zcash on one, and exchanging Zcash back to Bitcoins

on another. This is still a big "if", which can be feasible only if Zcash will be somewhere in the top 100 currently popular coins.

An attempt was already made by some project called DarkCoin, which later rebranded to DASH. They are still somewhere in

the top 50, but the exchange volumes are so low it cannot be practically used even for mixing existing Bitcoins.

 

Not that we need Zcash to use the above idea with other options, but it will still be better than nothing as an alternative.

After all it is not going to replace Bitcoins and all the eco-system - part of what is good about it is the fact that no one knows

who is the original author, and no one cares, unlike here where you have a team of scientists with mixed or hidden interests,

which have some semi working alpha blockchain with questionable present and future, all controlled by them and depending

on them entirely at this stage. This is an important community consensus that was proven by time, when governments tried to

control Bitcoin at an earlier stage but since there was no central actor, it was a very challenging task which many gave up on.

Part of the reasons no other coin became more popular even after nearly 7 years is the fact that the community, who are the

actual "share holders" of the currency, no longer wish any individual entity designing and changing it any way they like.

[Kepler_452b 77]

Snowden: Anonymous ‘Zcash’ Could Solve Bitcoin Surveillance Risks

https://news.bitcoin.com/snowden-zcash-bitcoin-risks/

 

 

First of all as we discuss Zcash on the forum we have to understand that the success of Zcash depends on it working well. It is currently in public beta testing (testnet). The code or at least critical parts of it has been audited by hired external auditors before it was released to beta. Any serious bugs found in beta will need to be fixed before full public release currently scheduled for October 28. If there are any that could push back the full release date. Minor bugs will need to be fixed asap. Like any new code, hackers will be looking for weaknesses and we won't know if they are successful until (if) a hack happens. Zcash uses the bitcoin core code to which has been integrated the anonymizing breakthroughs based on zk-SNARKs.But one would think that at least the bitcoin core part of the code should be pretty robust after 8 years of use and improvement.

 

Zhang, I like your point that it could be used to anonymize bitcoins. That alone should create a substantial demand for zecs. I would speculate that Zcash will grow alongside bitcoin, not replace it.  Eventually I would expect it surpass bitcoin, if governments don't intervene to try to prevent a truly anonymous medium of exchange.  The adoption rate is unpredictable because there are so many variables.

 

Dash is #7 biggest altcoin but only has $70M in circulation compared to bitcoin's $10B.

 

At the moment bitcoin is controlled by Chinese mining pools who, out of their own self-interest, have refused to allow the improvement of the blockchain to permit increased transaction rates. Bitcoin is often maxed out on transaction rate so that completing transactions becomes slow and unreliable. That's unfortunate. So it may not be a bad thing that Zcash is controlled right now by a known group of scientists and professionals whose reputation is on the line.

 

I believe that governments and established banking interests (lets call it Big Money), are in the process of getting rid of cash. Its much easier to control people if their every purchase is recorded and readily available via massive super fast IT technology. 90% of all economic transfers currently are done digitally. Buying a wurst leaves a paper trail. The world needs an anonymous easy to use decentralized digital currency to replace cash which is being phased out.

 

Bitcoin can be easy to use, but its anonymity is actually only pseudonymity (because it relies solely on a pseudonym, aka bitcoin address, for privacy). That pseudonymity  requires great care to maintain and can be broken even with great care.  This is beyond most people's technical skills or interest. The ecosystem which allows some anonymity for bitcoin is cumbersome and unreliable. But that goes away with Zcash because the anonymity is already built-in. People who currently earn their living from that ecosystem are going to have to adapt.

 

If Zcash works, the digital community needs to get behind it and grow it quickly into a powerful force before slower-moving government decides to ban or control it.

[Kepler_452b 77]

Etherium is the #2 digital currency with a total circulation of $1B.

“As much as people now love the idea and the benefits of blockchain technology, time and time again they bring up two issues that blockchains currently do not address: scalability and privacy. I believe that the technology that Zcash is working on is currently the best in class in its ability to address the privacy challenge.” Vitalik Buterin, Founder and Chief Scientist at Ethereum.

[cm0s 118]

group hug

[Kepler_452b 77]

[Kepler_452b 77]

I see that Genesis Zcash mining contracts are sold out as of today.

[Kepler_452b 77]

The futures price of 1 zec is already over $100.

[Kepler_452b 77]

Zec futures price today is @ $140.

 

People interested in Zcash will find this url interesting:

Slow-Start Mining & Mining Ecosystem:

https://z.cash/blog/slow-start-and-mining-ecosystem.html

 

 

and page 2

Software Usability and Hardware Requirements

https://z.cash/blog/software-usability-and-hardware-requirements.html/

[OpenSourcerer 1435]

9 out of 14 posts on this thread page (12/20 on the first, 21/34 in total) are your posts. 62%! I knew it all along, this is advertising, after all.

[Kepler_452b 77]

9 out of 14 posts on this thread page (12/20 on the first, 21/34 in total) are your posts. 62%! I knew it all along, this is advertising, after all.

 

Guess I was wrong, dude/ette. Judging from your paranoia, you like de meth. Dude/ette, I'm not advertising anything...end of this! I guess the 700+ people that have read this thread are interested in the topic and are interested in learning about it. You are interested in....?drama? Try the theatre.

[OpenSourcerer 1435]

Judging from your paranoia, you like de meth

 

You are not the first one trying to be cool by a ) calling me paranoid and b ) build something about drugs into an offense. Thank you very much.

 

Dude/ette, I'm not advertising anything...end of this!

 

Dude.

Then stop spamming!!!11!!1! You are bumping this thread to the top! One post a week is enough, don't you think? It's not drama, it's disregard for good practice.

[cm0s 118]

i remember when bitcoin came out, put it this way, if i'd purchased a couple grand of it at that time...

[Kepler_452b 77]

Think I'll just borrow a line from you, cm0s, if I may:

 

"yer on ignore giganerd"

 

Thanks.

[Guest]

You either have a unhealthy interest in this  or you are heavily invested in this otherwise...

 

I'd really like this cryptocurrency to "blow up", I would really like a cryptocurrency to be easily obtained (and used), but the numbers aren't looking good. I hope I'm wrong but this sounds like something that would fizzle out in the sand like the rest of that list 

Edited ... by ZPKZ

[OpenSourcerer 1435]

Seeing only one side of the medal does not make you smart, my friend.

 

I never said cryptocurrency is bad, merely that I personally don't trust them. You attacked me for my personal opinion.

I never said ZCash is bad, merely that I personally would wait for it to blossom before completely diving into it. You wanted to disprove me on every word.

I never said ZCash didn't stand the slightest chance, merely that I think, as outlined in previous posts like the one from zhang888, that ZCash might be "just another cryptocurrency". Apparently, I'm to blame.

 

All I said, figuratively, was to look on the other side of the medal because I had the feeling you, Mr. kepler, only light one of it - the good one. That's where people usually fall for it, they trust something new, they lose, fall over, even get ruined sometimes. You lure them into thinking, it's all cool and shiny. You don't pay attention to what can go wrong. I like doing it. Yet I'm the villain. Think about this for a second, dear reader.

 

So, why am I writing that it's advertising? The goal of advertising is promotion. Promotion is done by outlining what is really good about something, raising awareness of a name and making sure people use this thing before anything else.

• In numerous posts you were outlining why ZCash is cool and why it's better than the most popular thing right now, Bitcoin. Comparison in favor of a thing can be an effective way to market it.
• The name ZCash or words related to it are in almost every post of yours. When it's not there, Bitcoin is there instead with a point against it.
• A rather weak point, I admit, but you provide links to ZCash to ease the way for everyone to begin using ZCash. This is how you do the first steps in creating brand loyalty: designing an easy entry into it.

You totally forget that ZCash is not the first and will not be the last cryptocurrency with the same or a similar feature set. Why don't you just say "those three currencies you mentioned, giganerd, are good, too, since their goal is similar to that of ZCash" and actually contribute contructive criticism? Privacy is our goal, not using a specific thing to get it. At least, that's what I thought. Apparently, ZCash wants to be... different.

 

That's why I say it's advertising, you don't cease to show symptoms of marketing. And I'm the one to blame? I strongly advise you to not follow the footsteps of my old friend cm0s. But then again, what's life without enemies, eh!?

 

We definitely argued enough here. I'll repeat myself again, I'm totally open to cryptocurrencies, and to ZCash, too, but just right now neither ZCash nor the other currencies are a feasible way of changing the status quo. Cheers.

 

hey seriously giganerd, just stfu dude, ok
all ya do is bitch and spout negative shit
hope ya quit the forum man

 

hey seriously cm0s, just stfu dude, ok

all ya do is bitch and spout negative shit whenever I say somethin

hope ya quit the forum man

[Kepler_452b 77]

You either have a unhealthy interest in this ( ) or you are heavily invested in this otherwise...

 

I'd really like this cryptocurrency to "blow up", I would really like a cryptocurrency to be easily obtained (and used), but the numbers aren't looking good. I hope I'm wrong but this sounds like something that would fizzle out in the sand like the rest of that list 

 

Well, ZPKZ, let me address your two comments:

 

 

1) What I have is an interest in Zcash because as I said earlier, I'm convinced the world needs a fully anonymous, fully fungible decentralized digital currency to augment or replace cash, not because I want to see cash replaced, but because it seems that governments and the economic establishment are determined to get rid of it. Privacy is important to me and I believe important to the definition of freedom in a democratic society. Cash still provides a certain level of privacy which digital currencies up to this point do not. Zcash provides that privacy.

 

I just read an article yesterday:

"Sweden Leads The Race To Become Cashless Society"

http://money.cnn.com/video/technology/2016/10/24/sweden-cashless-society.cnnmoney/index.html?iid=SF_River

 

"Sweden.....is on the fast track to becoming wholly cash-free, with banks, buses, homeless street vendors and even churches expecting plastic or virtual payment".

 

Combine that with what Snowden revealed about governments' capacity and willingness to track and store minute invasive detail about everyone's lives and you can understand that we are on the edge of an Orwellian nightmare made possible by overwhelmingly powerful IT technology and the public's underwhelming recognition of the problem and stunning complacency in resisting it. Watch Oliver Stone's new "Snowden" movie; if you don't come away scared you're already joined the walking dead. Every time a Swede buys a pickled herring or gives a krona to a street beggar he/she will leave behind a digital trail of "who, what, when and where" which will be stored in Big Sister's database forever more.

 

So you've rather presumptuously pronounced my interest in Zcash "unhealthy". What is in fact unhealthy is a complacent disinterest in protecting socities' freedoms and privacy guarantees. When you're not busy judging people's interests as healthy or not, what are you doing to preserve the freedoms you've inherited?  PS: putting a smiley after an insult doesn't lessen the insult.

 

2) Not only am I not "heavily invested" in Zcash, I'm not invested in Zcash at all (financially speaking). I am however heavily invested in wanting to preserve privacy which is a fundamental pillar of a sustainable democracy.

 

When you say "the numbers aren't looking good", to what numbers are you referring? The only numbers I'm aware of are the number of dollars that futures markets are willing to pay for future zecs which is today about $143.

 

 

[OpenSourcerer 1435]

The only thing I'm doing around here is provoking discussions. It's not my fault people take it personally and start an argument instead.

 

i don't like windows, don't believe in windows, actually hate windows but guess what, i tell others on here
if they have a concern with their eddie or windows box to get a hold of ya

 

No need, I've been using Linux for a month now.

 

what you did on this thread is tell keplar basically he's an idiot for chatten about cryptocurrency

 

Oh god, do I have to disprove everything? I said "I don't trust ZCash and cryptocurrencies in general", he f*cking got mad, man! I'm not going to give you obvious links here, since you said yourself in the past, every moron can search for resources on the net.

 

act like you own this forum and tell him how often he should paste on his own thread, we got moderators
here gigatard, yer not one of them, and i can pretty much see why

 

I act like someone who actively participate. It's only natural that some people disagree but I can expect a user to disagree in a grown-up fashion.

 

ya basically slammed my snowden post 'glad i'm not on that' which is sad as all can be, then yer butt buddy basically steps in and comments on it being a cam

 

I didn't "slam" it. I commented with a rather off-topic comment because initially the post was longer but I removed what I wanted to write on the topic of Snowden to contribute to the discussion. Unfortunately, this cam thing left. Now don't say I do all of this on purpose, I reserve the right to make mistakes.

[Kepler_452b 77]

What you're misconstruing as "advertising" is actually just me being excited about the solution to an important set of problems finally being (hopefully) achieved. Zcash actually is different from most other digital currencies in that it is a solution that has been worked on for a long time by a group of highly educated experts in the blockchain/crpytography fields. It's not a coder in his garage. Many influential and knowledgeable people are excited about it. There's buzz. I have a very bright computergeekish friend who didn't know what Zcash was when I started telling him about it. Then he got all excited when he remembered that the CEO of his company (AT&T, as in Bell Labs, inventors of the transistor and Unix) mentioned it at a meeting. As I said, There's buzz.

[Kepler_452b 77]

Zcash futures are currently trading at $200/zec at Bitmex. Earlier today it traded at $230. Bear in mind that this is a small market with lots of volatility. I was listening to one altcoin market analyst last night who suggested that he would probably get out of Zcash futures on Friday when the actual Zcash mining begins...in other words taking profit from the futures market which had quickly gone from $15/zec to the current price more than 10x that.

Of course there is likely to be a lot of volatility of the actual zec value once it starts mining. Investing in altcoins is not for the faint of heart...more like the wild west tv series "Deadwood".

I'm throwing in the following block from minezcash.com for reference:

------------------------------------------------------
Zcash Trading Ticker Symbol : ZEC

Amount of Coins: Zcash is going to follow a model like Bitcoin in that there will be a total of 21 Million coins issued. It is impossible to know how long it will take to mine all 21M coins due to future advances in computer technology and algorithmic difficulty adjustments that will be made by the Zcash team.

Block Rewards: The Block Rewards will issue a total of 50 Zcash (ZEC) every 10 mins. The block spacing is 2.5 mins. It is important to note that the 50 ZEC/10mins Total Reward will not be available from Day 1 (1.0 Genesis Block) see “mining slow start” below.

Block Reward Halving: Every 4 years the Block Reward will be subject to Halving just like Bitcoin.

Founders Reward: The Zcash team has implemented a Founders reward for the people who built Zcash and to a non-profit organization in the form of ZEC issued back to the team. This means that for the first 4 years the Block Rewards will be issued as 80% to the Miners and 20% to the Zcash team. After the first 4 years 100% of the rewards will go to the miners. It should also be noted that Miners will always keep 100% of the transaction fees.

Mining Slow Start : Zcash will be subject to a “Mining Slow Start” meaning that for the first 20,000 blocks there will be a maximum of 12.5 ZEC issued per block in a 2.5 increment. The ZEC issuance curve will ramp up over the 20,000 blocks to the full 12.5 ZEC and the difficulty algorithm will be adjusted as needed. This Slow Start is to prevent “insta-mining” and “fastmining” in the early days of the 1.0 launch and to allow the Zcash team to adjust the ZEC/time algorithm.

Proof of Work: The Proof of Work (POW) algorithm for Zcash is Equihash. Equihash is a memory hard algorithm based off of the Generalized Birthday Problem. The Zcash team is not opposed to adjusting or even completely changing this POW depending on how the network is operating.

Transaction fees: TBD after 1.0 launch depending on wallet implementation.

--------------------------------------------------------

[zhang888 1066]

Artificial supply limit, backorders, chains of people lining up for the launch, media buzz, tech people endorsing it.

This is a very Apple way of doing things.

 

Block Rewards will be issued as 80% to the Miners and 20% to the Zcash team

 

Not greedy at all How to apply to the board?

[Kepler_452b 77]

After the first 4 years 100% of the rewards will go to the miners. It should also be noted that Miners will always keep 100% of the transaction fees.

 

Ultimately the founders will get 10% of the all zec. Guess different people will have different opinions on this. Satoshi Nakamoto ended up with about 5% of all bitcoin. My feeling is that 10% split between a large team and the founding investors is not a lot. They deserve to be rewarded for their work and risk.

 

"Artificial supply limit, backorders, chains of people lining up for the launch, media buzz, tech people endorsing it.

This is a very Apple way of doing things." 

 

I've never much liked what I see as Apple's excessively proprietary business model. But  I hope Zcash becomes as wildly successful as Apple.

[Kepler_452b 77]

South Korea plans national digital currency using a Blockchain

http://bravenewcoin.com/news/south-korea-plans-national-digital-currency-using-a-blockchain/

 

 

Slightly off-topic but interesting.

[Kepler_452b 77]

If you're having trouble completing a BTC (bitcoin) transaction here's why:

 

Bitcoin is currently overdrawn on its maximum transaction rate. Right now its running about at about 60,000 unconfirmed transactions. Some people report waiting more than a day for their transactions to be confirmed.

 

See live update here: https://blockchain.info/unconfirmed-transactions

 

Also slightly off-topic, but illustrates one of the serious problems with bitcoin.

[Kepler_452b 77]

Tomorrow is the big day for Zcash. It will be released for public mining of real zec (not test coins). I expect things to be chaotic as hell as people try to mine,  get the lay of the land, and try to figure out what the market value of zec will be even though there won't yet be enough zec to participate in exchanges. Zec futures are currently trading on BitMex at about 80% of 1BTC or $530 (wow!), but the quantities are small and I don't think most people expect the value of zec to settle anywhere near that in the short term...but who knows. There will be about 4000 zec mined by the end of  week 1, 16000 by week 2, and 64000 by week 4. It's impossible to know how much world-wide hash power will be devoted to zcash mining. So it's impossible to predict the ROI for any investment in mining. The difficulty of mining is adjusted automatically by the algorithm depending on the overall amount of mining so that an approximately constant rate of zec creation is maintained (50 zec/10 minutes after the slow start month). It's expected that botnet owners will be among the miners. Zcash mining incorporates a requirement for 8GB ram minimum which was intended in part to help reduce botnet activity presumably under the assumption that many compromised computers worldwide do not have that much ram.


The first big day for Zcash actually was last Saturday when the trusted setup was completed successfully in Denver . Encryption keys were created upon which (for technical reasons related to  zero-knowledge proofs) the entire future integrity of Zcash depends. The ceremony was overseen and documented by independent journalists. Six people participated in the ceremony by creating individual shards of public and private keys, combining them, and then destroying the private keys. The process was implemented such that all 6 participants would have had to collude to backdoor the system. As long as at least one participant acted honestly, the keys would be created validly. The following individuals participated in the ceremony:

    Andrew Miller
    Peter Van Valkenberg
    John Dobbertin
    Zooko Wilcox
    Derek Hinch
    Fabrice Renault

 

Note: an unspecified part of the founder's 10% will fund a public foundation to oversee future changes to Zcash.