Many blockchain users are confident that Bitcoin is the best digital currency in terms of the privacy of transactions. But this is not the case. Today, only one cryptocurrency system can offer complete confidentiality of transactions – Zcash, which is based on the work of the Zerocash protocols. It is Zcash that can reliably hide information about the sending and receiving parties. Moreover, transactions in the Zcash system are much more difficult to calculate, and sometimes almost impossible.

Even though Zcash is capable of providing the highest level of privacy today, the digital currency has some problems, by and large, in functionality. Since the currency is fairly new, it lacks some of the features that Bitcoin has. The CEO of the Zcash system, who is also a large holder of the cryptocurrency, Zuko Wilcox O’Hearn, once gave an interview to one well-known Internet portal dedicated to the development of cryptocurrencies, Epicenter Bitcoin.

The long process of generating confidential transactions

The main problem with Zcash is that it takes too long to generate private transactions. This reduces the attractiveness of the system, since customers need speed, especially since Bitcoin has no problem with it.

A short excerpt from a speech by Zuko Wilcox at a symposium on the development of crypto technologies: “In today’s version of Zcash, after using the code, it takes about 2-3 minutes to create a confidential transaction. This is not a very good result if you focus on Bitcoin, where the generation of transactions is faster. But the process of confirming a transaction takes a few seconds, which fits perfectly into the concept of improving system performance. Miners and pools are celebrating the excellent performance of the Zerocash protocols, so we don’t need to worry about that. The problem of a too-long generation of such transactions remains relevant, even if a high-bit processor is used. “

The Zcash system is quite heavy on low-end platforms. For example, to generate a confidential transaction, you need more than four gigabytes of RAM, otherwise, nothing will come of it. Zuko also commented on this: “The Zcash system cannot be used on low-performance platforms, and even more so on smartphones. The system simply will not be able to generate a confidential transaction due to insufficient productive resources. It will also be useless when the user needs an instant private transaction, you need to take into account the time delay for a generation.”

The Zcash system is not very convenient and efficient, but this is not surprising, because it provides a high level of privacy. If we draw an analogy with Bitcoin, then Zcash uses a different system of making transactions, therefore privacy is higher and performance is lower.

How to fix the Zcash performance issue

Zuko Wilcox assures that the delay in the generation of confidential transactions should not be a problem for the users of the system. The Zcash blockchain technology also supports open transactions, where there is practically no delay time for creating a transfer.

Zuko explained to the symposium participants how such a system works: “Zcash technology conducts both public and private transactions. It is possible to combine them, but in this case, privacy is not guaranteed. The private transaction mode can be used for incoming funds so that it is not possible to find out the source of the sender. The same mode can be used to transfer funds to other accounts or e-wallets. The only problem is a 2-minute delay, although it is difficult to call it a problem. “

Zuko also added: “As I stated earlier, the Zcash system provides almost 100% privacy when used with the appropriate transaction generation mode. If you use exclusively confidential transactions, then in an open blockchain system there will be a minimum of information about you.”

Missing system features

In addition to performance issues, the Zcash system has several shortcomings. For example, the Zcash network does not support multi signatures (in privacy mode), which in the Bitcoin system are a mandatory attribute of any transactions. Many interesting developments have been created based on multi-signature technology that is not available for Zcash.

“Our digital currency is aimed, first of all, at the maximum confidentiality of transactions. Want to use multi-signature? Well, then transfer funds in an open mode, when all information about the transfer is not encoded. Multisig technology doesn’t work if you need to make a transaction private, ”said Zuko Wilcox.