Which Privacy Coin Should You Invest In?
3 min readWhile cryptocurrencies remain the talk of the town, private coins are gaining popularity. Sure, along with decentralization, transparent blockchains were previously a crucial feature of cryptocurrency—you could easily identify Bitcoin transactions—but now it’s all about user privacy. Here’s when privacy coins come into play. A network of anonymous validators maintains the interesting technology, which uses innovative privacy measures. To put it another way, privacy coins guarantee privacy by obscuring the flow of bitcoin across their networks, meaning you can place bets on National Casino AU as much as you want with full privacy. If you’re a crypto enthusiast like us, you’ve probably heard of the most popular altcoins on the market: Zcash and Monero.
Team Zcash or Team Monero
Zcash and Monero, as two of the most popular privacy-focused cryptocurrencies on the market, secure senders’ and receivers’ anonymity, as well as quantities and balances. There is, however, a reason why some people prefer one to the other. Despite their similarities, Zcash and Monero have fundamental differences and underlying protocols that are best suited for different applications.
Zcash was created in 2016 with the goal of resolving the privacy issues that Bitcoin was experiencing at the time. Zcash, which is based on the Bitcoin network, uses cryptography to guarantee greater anonymity to its users. The Zcash team made various changes to the Bitcoin software, one of which was the addition of zero-knowledge proofs, which ensured that transactions were completed by obscuring sending and receiving addresses as well as the transaction value.
When the Bytecoin network hardforked in 2014, Monero was born. This privacy coin uses proof-of-work mining to achieve distributed consensus, which requires highly advanced cryptographic algorithms. Monero is based on an untraceable blockchain that conceals user transactions.
Differences and Similarities Between Zcash and Monero
When comparing Zcash vs Monero, privacy and security come out on top. When users make transactions, both altcoins enable confidentiality; however, only one of them offers the option of transparency. The goal, though, remains the same.
Since their inception, Monero and Zcash have followed a similar pricing trajectory. Monero began to rise in late 2016, and it reached new heights in 2017. Monero reached an all-time high of $500 per coin in 2018.
When Zcash originally came out, it was rather stable. Its value began to rise in 2017, a year after Monero’s and was fairly steady with Bitcoin. When the value of Bitcoin fell, so did the value of Zcash.
One of the most important distinctions between the two is how they protect users’ privacy when conducting transactions. The Zcash network allows you to choose which transactions are transparent or shielded, while the Monero network only handles private transactions.
Unlike Monero, Zcash is regulatory-friendly in that transactions can be broadcast over the network. As a result, Monero is being scrutinized more closely, and crypto exchanges are adding Zcash to their servers. Another distinction that we notice is the variation in speed. On the Monero network, new blocks are formed every two minutes, whereas Zcash’s block duration is roughly two and a half minutes.
