Zcash founder: I hope Zcash can be more dynamic and ambitious than BTC, but more conservative than ETH

The Bitcoin Conference held in San Jose, USA in 2013 was one of the most important events in the history of cryptocurrency. It was that conference that brought together developers from different fields and gave the Zcash protocol its initial form.

At the time, there were two major discoveries in the cryptocurrency space. One was Zerocoin, which was the first cryptocurrency protocol with a strong privacy system. At the same time, developers also improved the mathematical logic for zero knowledge proofs (now called ZK-SNARKS), which can confirm the validity of transactions without publishing transaction information.

The Zcash blockchain is a scientific project that is currently running on a test network and will be officially launched on October 28 this year, becoming a means of storing value, that is, a cryptocurrency.

(Zooko Wilcox, founder of Zcash)

The outside world has high expectations for this project. Therefore, Zcash founder and CEO Zooko Wilcox became the star figure of this year's DevCon2.

Tokens support the network, confirm transactions, and can also be a currency. However, in the Zcash blockchain, tokens have other functions, such as data storage. Wilcox said:

The standardized and encrypted nature of Zcash tokens creates a kind of selective transparency. Its anonymity is not absolute; you can choose who to show data to, even if the data is in a standardized single database.

Wilcox explained in detail at DevCon how to achieve interoperability between the Zcash blockchain and Ethereum (fork): the first step is to add a ZK-SNARK precompiler to Ethereum (fork); the second step is to add programmability to Zcash to prepare for further smart contract embedding; the third step is to connect the two blockchains. The interoperability of the blockchain will be achieved比特币中继（BTC Relay） . Bitcoin Relay can implant Bitcoin light clients in Ethereum, and Zcash light clients can do the same.

It’s been interesting to witness the evolution of the Zerocoin protocol, which is a conceptual extension of Bitcoin. Bitcoin developers (Core developers said this at the 2013 conference) had said that they would not consider including the Zerocoin code in the Bitcoin protocol update because it was too inefficient. Because the Zerocoin protocol was still in the experimental stage at the time and did not have the efficiency of ZK-SNARKS. Bitcoin core suggested that the Zerocoin protocol be experimented with altcoin projects first to see what the results would be. Wilcox said:

It was the right decision for them. When the choice came down to me, I decided to use the Zcash protocol on my own blockchain because it was the fastest and easiest way to implement the protocol. Once we start deploying, everyone can learn from our experience.

But we are also deploying similar technology in other ways, such as embedding zero-knowledge proof verification tools into Ethereum (fork). I am also happy to work with the Bitcoin community to integrate Zcash and Bitcoin in the way they require.

I don’t know what the next phase of our development will bring. I don’t know if the Bitcoin protocol will consider an update and incorporate our technology; or if other technologies like sidechains will suddenly come out and the Bitcoin blockchain will eventually choose this technology to achieve anonymity.

I hope that Zcash will be more dynamic and ambitious than the Bitcoin protocol, but more conservative than Ethereum (the fork).

Banks and financial institutions are looking for privacy solutions for their blockchains. So have they turned to Wilcox for help?

There are many similar demands, and we are working with some private chain projects and financial institutions. We are a small team focusing on the privacy of blockchain, which is our only pursuit.

Our philosophy is to do one thing at a time and do it well. Therefore, after we successfully launch the Zcash project, we will consider working with different communities to help them achieve privacy on the blockchain.