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I can't do an apples-apples comparison to the ones you listed because I'm only familiar with Bitcoin and the original Zerocash paper. I can say that the zkSNARK

I can't do an apples-apples comparison to the ones you listed because I'm only familiar with Bitcoin and the original Zerocash paper. I can say that the zkSNARK approach to crypto-currency is certainly novel and they have a great team of competent cryptographers and engineers on the team. That is to say, Zcash isn't a hobbyist effort, it's the result of serious crypto engineering. It's not clown-shoes privacy.

jerguismi 11y ago
OK so basically appeal to authority etc. Not much that a common guy can understand. Sounds to me like a product that is only designed for really smart people...
- sarciszewski 11y ago
  > OK so basically appeal to authority etc. No, I'm not making an appeal to authority. Sorry if it sounded like that. The team behind Zcash has serious technical chops, and it's worth pointing out that some of the most competent cryptographers and engineers in the world are working on this project. They've openly published the paper behind their protocol and their code base is open source. They aren't going the "trust us, we're kind of a big deal" route. If you want to understand, read the paper: http://zerocash-project.org/paper http://zerocash-project.org/paper ...and the source code: https://github.com/Electric-Coin-Company/zcash https://github.com/Electric-Coin-Company/zcash If you don't want to bother to understand (e.g. if you don't consider yourself a subset of "really smart people"), then you have to find some other metric to decide whether or not to trust it. I offered the backgrounds and reputations of the people involved as one possible heuristic, but feel free to choose another if you prefer.
- statoshi 11y ago
  Most people don't understand how the Internet works, yet they manage to use it every day. Same goes for existing mainstream financial systems.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - jerguismi 11y ago
    Well the question really is, how do the masses start to use this? If only couple of smart people understand it, it won't help much. There are already lot of "like bitcoin, but anonymous" coins, which haven't gained that significant success. If most of the people can't understand why this one is "the shit", they aren't going to see difference between this and the other privacy-promoting altcoins.

jerguismi 11y ago

OK so basically appeal to authority etc. Not much that a common guy can understand. Sounds to me like a product that is only designed for really smart people...

sarciszewski 11y ago
> OK so basically appeal to authority etc. No, I'm not making an appeal to authority. Sorry if it sounded like that. The team behind Zcash has serious technical chops, and it's worth pointing out that some of the most competent cryptographers and engineers in the world are working on this project. They've openly published the paper behind their protocol and their code base is open source. They aren't going the "trust us, we're kind of a big deal" route. If you want to understand, read the paper: http://zerocash-project.org/paper http://zerocash-project.org/paper ...and the source code: https://github.com/Electric-Coin-Company/zcash https://github.com/Electric-Coin-Company/zcash If you don't want to bother to understand (e.g. if you don't consider yourself a subset of "really smart people"), then you have to find some other metric to decide whether or not to trust it. I offered the backgrounds and reputations of the people involved as one possible heuristic, but feel free to choose another if you prefer.
statoshi 11y ago
Most people don't understand how the Internet works, yet they manage to use it every day. Same goes for existing mainstream financial systems.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- jerguismi 11y ago
  Well the question really is, how do the masses start to use this? If only couple of smart people understand it, it won't help much. There are already lot of "like bitcoin, but anonymous" coins, which haven't gained that significant success. If most of the people can't understand why this one is "the shit", they aren't going to see difference between this and the other privacy-promoting altcoins.