ZCash ZEC Overview: ZCash, a cryptocurrency lesser known among the trading crowd and more popular among crypto miners, reached its post-ICO high level of $800 early on Friday, before pulling back down early on Monday's trading session. With more miners digging it, Zcash could become appealing among traders as well. Here is a quick overview.
What is ZCash ZEC?
Zcash is a decentralized and open-source cryptocurrency. Zcash coin code is ZEC. Standing at the 23rd position in terms of cryptocurrency market cap, Zcash aims to differentiate itself from others by focusing a great deal on privacy.
According to their website, Zcash is based on peer-reviewed cryptographic research and built by a security-specialized engineering team on an open source platform based on Bitcoin Core's battle-tested codebase.
How Does ZCash Work?
Zcash leverages zero-knowledge proof constructions called zk-SNARKs, which allow two users to exchange information without revealing their identities. While the bitcoin blockchain contains records of the participants in a transaction, as well as the amount involved, Zcash ZEC blockchain shows only that a transaction took place, not who was involved or what the amount was.
Zcash also enables users to send public payments which work similarly to Bitcoin. With the support for both shielded and transparent addresses, users can choose to send Zcash privately or publicly. Zcash payments sent from a shielded address to a transparent address reveal the received balance, while payments from a transparent address to a shielded address protect the receiving value.
While this feature could be appealing to criminals, Zcash believes companies need the protection of privacy along with their supply chain in order to conduct their business, especially in the context of public blockchains. In addition, they believe that personal privacy is necessary for core human values like dignity, intimacy, and morality.
ZCash ZEC Price Action
Unlike many of its crypto peers, Zcash ZEC actually started its journey high, at $30,000 in October 2016. It then dropped sharply to as low as $30 within two months. In mid-2017 it started to gain momentum, now fluctuating between $800 and $500 with the potential of reaching new highs soon.
We could see pullbacks towards key Fibonacci retracement levels at $644, $522, and $478 respectively before seeing more gains.
*This article was originally published here