Zcash (ZEC)

The exchange rate of one ZEC at 15:30 UTC is 23.31$

Chart | Average rate

“Zcash” is a proof-of-work (PoW) cryptocurrency designed to address some of the inherent weaknesses of Bitcoin, such as its lack of fungibility. Zcash relies on a set of zero-knowledge proofs called “zk-SNARKs” to improve anonymity and therefore fungibility.

On the Zcash network, addresses are either private ("z-addresses") or transparent/public ("t-addresses"). These two types of addresses are compatible.

According to the team, some of its key features include low-fee transactions, encrypted memos (allowing the sender to tell the recipient relevant information), payment information disclosure (allowing the details of a transaction to be disclosed to third parties), multi-signature transactions, and transaction expiration (transactions expire after a certain number of blocks if they are not mined).

Originally built on the Zerocash protocol, it has been powered by Sapling since late 2018 as part of its continuous improvement strategy. The introduction of Sapling has resulted in increased efficiency in secure transactions (lower memory requirements), separation of spending authority (i.e. zero-knowledge proof hardware is independent of transaction signing hardware), and an improved key system (allowing secure addresses to view details incoming and outgoing transactions without revealing secret keys).

The platform was founded by Zooko Wilcox, who also founded the “Zerocoin Electric Coin Company” and created the Zerocoin protocol. It is based on research by scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Technion, Johns Hopkins University, Tel Aviv University and the University of California at Berkeley. Leading cryptographers worked on the creation of this platform.

Aside from its innovative privacy features, ZEC is a fairly simple crypto asset that is primarily intended for peer-to-peer value transfers. For this purpose, it provides many of the same benefits as Bitcoin, Litecoin and other similar cryptocurrencies - the network works 24/7 and money can be sent around the world completely without trust.

There have been no security breaches in the history of cryptocurrency, and due to the nature of the blockchain and the general acceptance of Zcash, the system is considered secure as it is backed by a large network of hardware.

Zcash has a limited supply of coins available, limited to 21,000,000 ZEC, which prevents inflation and other money printing problems.

You can get Zcash by buying them on a cryptocurrency exchange or by receiving them in exchange for goods and services. Zcash can also be obtained through mining, but keep in mind that mining cryptocurrencies requires a significant initial investment, and the profitability of mining can vary significantly depending on the electricity costs and the market price of ZEC.