🌱 Zcash Sapling — Issue No. 13
/🗞 News
The Zcash team has released version 2.0.0 of the network's node software, codenamed Sapling. On October 28th, the software will execute a network hardfork, unlocking a bevy of protocol improvements that make Zcash more performant, private, and trustless. Link.As I've written before, Zcash is well regarded in the technical community. It's most impressive feat is bringing a cutting edge class of cryptography, called zk-SNARKS, to bear on a cryptocurrency network. The technology allows for optional "shielded" transactions wherein the sender, receiver, and amount are obfuscated from the public chain. Mind bending-ly, the network can verify transactions and prevent double spends despite this, thanks to snarks. This release makes them faster and less memory intensive, and thus more likely to be used. If, like me, you can't imagine how this is possible, checkout this introduction to the technology. Link.
One fascinating feature of zk-SNARKs is the necessity to create a secret parameter, akin to a private key, which can be used to generate fake proofs by anyone who holds it. On the Zcash network, this would mean the ability to surreptitiously mint new coins. Thus, to launch the network without revealing this private key, the Zcash founders went through an elaborate, six person "cryptographic ceremony" to ensure no one ever actually had it. Link.
The new release takes this process a step further. It uses a new parameter that was generated by an open, public ceremony that had dozens of participants. As long as one of those dozens of participants acted honestly, the new private key can never be recovered. Link.
Zcash continues to excite me as one of the most impressive projects in the space. It has a clear and important use case as a privacy-centric currency. It improves on the money-ness of other coins by being more fungible. It has an obviously-talented team that has executed effectively to date. And it has a sustainable (though somewhat controversial) protocol based mechanism for funding development. If you could only pick one project in the space to pay attention to, outside of Bitcoin and Ethereum, Zcash would be a wise choice. Even if Zcash itself ends up failing, zk-SNARKS is an important technology to be familiar with and will undoubtedly have a big role to play in the blockchain world.