privacy coins - why now?
A privacy coin called Zcash (ZEC) has been on a tear for the past six weeks, in contrast with its chief rival Monero (XMR). A three month comparison of market capitalization for the two leading privacy coins shows Zcash languishing until recently, when it surged to nearly a 10x gain. 3-month market cap comparison
In case you're wondering, Monero is the gold standard, but Zcash has a known person in charge and is opt-in so it's more business-friendly ATM. By default a user's ledger use is transparent. This is a major advantage to business users seeking to easily comply with AML and KYC regulations.
My view of cryptocurrency has long been that Bitcoin has inherent value derived from its relatively decentralized nature, primarily its censorship resistance. Bitcoin as an asset class is a programmable store of value with important advantages over gold. But always-on transparency is such an obvious problem, it hangs over Bitcoin like the sword of Damocles.
Zcash was always lauded for having sound tech, but the wallet was always unusable. Signing transactions took minutes sometimes, and failed sometimes, and the UI was rough. Now leveraging a new cross-chain protocol they've rolled out, a new wallet, Zashi, is breathing new life into this old privacy coin. Time to take a fresh look.