The Zcash Project sought to expand upon Bitcoin, which is considered by many to be the benchmark store-of-value and digital currency. By introducing several technical modifications to the original Bitcoin source code, users are granted the ability to decide on the degree of confidentiality associated with their financial activities. These features concentrate on safeguarding financial privacy and other network upgrades. In addition, the ECC and the Zcash Foundation are backed by prominent digital currency investors4 and development is supported by a team of world-class engineers and researchers specializing in cryptography.
Zcash seeks to become the model digital currency of choice for privacy and digital information security and has established itself to be one of the top 35 largest networks by market cap in the ecosystem.
Learn more about the history and defining characteristics of Zcash in our report, which is part of the Building Blocks series:
1 Short for “Zero-Knowledge Succinct Non-Interactive Arguments of Knowledge”
2 The authors of the Zerocash proposal in alphabetical order are: Eli Ben-Sasson, Alessandro Chiesa, Christina Garman, Matthew Green, Ian Miers, Eran Tromer, and Madars Virza.
3 The Zcash Foundation was established in 2017 as a non-profit organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Notably, the Zcash Foundation’s mission is dedicated to internet payment and privacy infrastructure in general, and not specifically the Zcash network. The Zcash Foundation has historically focused on the Zcash network because it believes ZEC is currently the best solution for financial privacy.
4 Digital Currency Group, Inc., the sole member and parent company of Grayscale Investments, LLC, owns an immaterial percentage of the Zcash in circulation and a minority interest in the ECC.
