Zcash is a cryptocurrency built for privacy, meaning that transactions are expected to be hidden from outside actors, unless the transacting parties want to disclose the transactions. Most cryptocurrencies reveal your transaction history to everyone. Zcash was built with the help of researchers at MIT and John Hopkins, and allows payment disclosure to only happen with the consent of the participating parties. Privacy is the key trait of Zcash, and its developers believe that privacy leads to free decision making.
Supported by top exchanges and wallets, nearly instant transactions
Selective transparency allows for regulatory compliance
Decentralized currency prevents attacks and censorship
Privacy allows true anonymity in transactions for both receivers, amount, and senders
Zcash is built on the original Bitcoin codebase, meaning that it shares all the same basic features as Bitcoin. It supports four different transaction types: private, deshielding, shielding, and public. In a private transaction, the record itself appears on the blockchain, but the participating addresses, amounts, and memo field are all encrypted. A transaction can have the receiving party be encrypted, the sending party be encrypted, or any combination of unencrypted and encrypted transactions.
