How I converted from Zcash to BTC.
Last few months I devoted my time to investigate Zcash (going beyond technical analysts) and come to the conclusion that I need to sell all my ZEC position and buy BTC.
Since I haven't found concentrated/summarized thoughts at one place, I decided to make a tweet so others can find this useful.
So let me name few thoughts:
• Hardly anyone seems to be using Zcash’s anonymity features (estimated to be like 0,1 %) ...I found only ZecWallet supporting these transactions. (Consider how old is ZEC and no privacy adaption in wallets). If one wants to use it, he needs 5 GB of RAM and 25gb free disk to run the program. Therefore it don't see it as a mobile friendly wallet.
• Zcash mining is incredibly centralized.
• Zooko publicly admitted that he doesn’t know how Zk-snarks works (see: https://youtu.be/P6RLjcGVUnw).
• Expiring developers funding in 2020. Since developers in ECC are supposed to be unique, I see no developers when ECC is gone. Moreover let’s face it, ZEC developers salaries are above average (for non US resident)
• Knowledge of Zk-snarks is not owned by ECC (Electric Coin Company). Zk-snarks are not so new, as they were discussed and experimented in 80`s, and after a while more and more scientific papers were published decade before Zcash ... so Zk-snarks are “open source knowledge”.
• Albeit Zk-snarks protocol is monetary system is relatively new and has yet to undergo the test of time. On the other hand more and more currencies adopt just these/similar privacy features step by step and i don’t see anymore the huge advantage Zcash had 3 years ago. This combined with most of the above reasons and the current development makes me believe that the future won’t be so bright. Zcash should gain trust and popularity in first 2 years.
• consider this; what keeps a gigantic army of BTC developers back to integrate Zk-snarks in Bitcoin, not as primary function...the same as ZEC has it, choose it if you want to?
• ECC team already help implemented JPMorgan ZEC privacy features... so when ECC developers will be on the street next year (they sure will miss above-average salaries... the last thing they will work for free for ZEC (from my point of view -> ZEC developers paid by ZEC holders to develop Zk-snarks for JPMorgan) kinda irony
• Zcash community forum - nothing seriously happening there. I see only few people with superior brains there (sorry as they are neither developers nor ECC officials), yet no serious involvement from ECC and developers
• Ethereum team already working on integrating Zk-snarks.
• E.Snowden did mentioned that he likes ZEC privacy features only because Zk-snarks encryption. He clearly said that others coins will do the same and that's a great thing.
• Ycash “friendly” fork (free money of thin air project) Having ZEC officials even support this fork
• REAL trading volume is so small (when doing this notes last week was 2,3 M$)
• For the end a story. Two years ago AlphaBay (popular darknet marketplaces) back then has officially announced that Zcash is available as a payment option on its platform. 5 days after that announcement, AlphaBay got seized by law enforcement. Just 5 days after it’s integration of Zcash (coincidence?)
• Looking forward for good arguments why I am being wrong.
Last few months I devoted my time to investigate Zcash (going beyond technical analysts) and come to the conclusion that I need to sell all my ZEC position and buy BTC.
Since I haven't found concentrated/summarized thoughts at one place, I decided to make a tweet so others can find this useful.
So let me name few thoughts:
• Hardly anyone seems to be using Zcash’s anonymity features (estimated to be like 0,1 %) ...I found only ZecWallet supporting these transactions. (Consider how old is ZEC and no privacy adaption in wallets). If one wants to use it, he needs 5 GB of RAM and 25gb free disk to run the program. Therefore it don't see it as a mobile friendly wallet.
• Zcash mining is incredibly centralized.
• Zooko publicly admitted that he doesn’t know how Zk-snarks works (see: https://youtu.be/P6RLjcGVUnw).
• Expiring developers funding in 2020. Since developers in ECC are supposed to be unique, I see no developers when ECC is gone. Moreover let’s face it, ZEC developers salaries are above average (for non US resident)
• Knowledge of Zk-snarks is not owned by ECC (Electric Coin Company). Zk-snarks are not so new, as they were discussed and experimented in 80`s, and after a while more and more scientific papers were published decade before Zcash ... so Zk-snarks are “open source knowledge”.
• Albeit Zk-snarks protocol is monetary system is relatively new and has yet to undergo the test of time. On the other hand more and more currencies adopt just these/similar privacy features step by step and i don’t see anymore the huge advantage Zcash had 3 years ago. This combined with most of the above reasons and the current development makes me believe that the future won’t be so bright. Zcash should gain trust and popularity in first 2 years.
• consider this; what keeps a gigantic army of BTC developers back to integrate Zk-snarks in Bitcoin, not as primary function...the same as ZEC has it, choose it if you want to?
• ECC team already help implemented JPMorgan ZEC privacy features... so when ECC developers will be on the street next year (they sure will miss above-average salaries... the last thing they will work for free for ZEC (from my point of view -> ZEC developers paid by ZEC holders to develop Zk-snarks for JPMorgan) kinda irony
• Zcash community forum - nothing seriously happening there. I see only few people with superior brains there (sorry as they are neither developers nor ECC officials), yet no serious involvement from ECC and developers
• Ethereum team already working on integrating Zk-snarks.
• E.Snowden did mentioned that he likes ZEC privacy features only because Zk-snarks encryption. He clearly said that others coins will do the same and that's a great thing.
• Ycash “friendly” fork (free money of thin air project) Having ZEC officials even support this fork
• REAL trading volume is so small (when doing this notes last week was 2,3 M$)
• For the end a story. Two years ago AlphaBay (popular darknet marketplaces) back then has officially announced that Zcash is available as a payment option on its platform. 5 days after that announcement, AlphaBay got seized by law enforcement. Just 5 days after it’s integration of Zcash (coincidence?)
• Looking forward for good arguments why I am being wrong.