by aston on 11/17/16, 4:17 PM with 159 comments
by malgorithms on 11/17/16, 5:24 PM
When I shared a draft post with some friends, a lot of them had an ah-ha moment, so I was hoping for the same from others. I was trying to illustrate 2 privacy concerns around the graph Bitcoin exposes: (1) accidental associations and (2) exposing the people you transact with to each other.
In the blog's hypothetical, you're not receiving money from some asshole because you're collecting Klan dues from him. Rather, you performed some public transaction with a stranger. For example, maybe you sold him some tickets. An external observer of the graph who knows he's a dangerous character may start applying high odds that you, too, are a dangerous character, since they don't know why he sent you money. This would suck. And, second, this character who sent you money may also be learning things about you. Since you sold tickets to a local show and mailed them to him, (1) he's likely to live near you, and (2) he knows your return address. You really don't want him seeing that you're sending money to causes he opposes. If so, he might show up at your door.
The goal was to clear up this misconception that a private cryptocurrency is there to protect criminals. This is especially important if you'd like to post a static address on a profile.
by pero on 11/17/16, 9:58 PM
I am relieved that 'Keybase chose Zcash' purely on merit after an exhaustive and objective selection process, and that this potential conflict of interest is transparently disclosed in the linked adverticle - wait, they did no such thing.
Does it concern no one that this security-focused company is shilling for other (fundamentally questionable) products?
by CiPHPerCoder on 11/17/16, 4:35 PM
(Yes, I've looked at the other attempts to build a private alternative to Bitcoin, including Monero: https://github.com/monero-project/monero/issues/1271)
by computerwizard on 11/17/16, 5:19 PM
by gtlondon on 11/18/16, 12:21 AM
Privacy is compulsory with Monero and also the entire platform is decentralised.
The privacy features in Zcash are optional & very slow / difficult to use -- most users will simply make non-private transactions. Also Zcash requires trust of the founders (Any "private" coin that requires trust of a third party is a fail in my mind).
by choffman on 11/17/16, 6:27 PM
by Panino on 11/17/16, 5:57 PM
by kneel on 11/17/16, 5:10 PM
ctrl-f 'founders reward'
by Uptrenda on 11/18/16, 4:22 AM
The home page also follows a similar pattern: just beautiful, uncluttered, no bullshit design, that gets straight to the point. Why can't more websites do this? A+++ would browse again.
by EvilMonkeyMat on 11/18/16, 2:11 AM
If anonymity is so important for people, there are already excellent solutions, Monero being one of the best, if not the best, with a strong and serious dev team.
Disclaimer: I am not a Monero dev and I own a huge total of 0.6 XMR. This is only my opinion as a software dev.
by yownie on 11/18/16, 3:23 AM
by mtgx on 11/17/16, 4:49 PM
I also wonder about how much of a risk to its own ecosystem Zcash being a private company represents. Was that really better than making it a non-profit? And won't this make it easier for law enforcement to go after Zcash as the sole culpable entity for "money laundering" and other such charges?
by speps on 11/17/16, 4:55 PM
> use the invitation code "zcash" during signup
by anondon on 11/17/16, 5:44 PM
I like the ideas behind Zcash and it solves important privacy issues, but I don't like the idea of a for profit company being the heavyweight behind Zcash.
From what I gather, Bitcoin is more of a community effort than most other altcoins, which inspires trust.
I looked up Zcash's price chart, it fell from ~$1300 at launch to ~$90 now. Ouch.
by jszymborski on 11/17/16, 9:03 PM
by doozler on 11/18/16, 1:33 PM
by alexmingoia on 11/18/16, 8:16 PM
by rgbrgb on 11/17/16, 5:16 PM
by dstaten on 11/17/16, 8:26 PM
by brilliantcode on 11/17/16, 5:11 PM
Extreme inflation will continue sending prices crashing. Recall early this month prices were hovering around 2 Ferrari 458 and now it's tanked to under a 100 dollars.
If we were to assume that in 48 months X 200,000 ZEC = ~100,000,000 ZEC with 20,000,000 ZEC belonging to the Founders.
edit: why the downvotes? I'm just reporting the facts: https://twitter.com/TommyEconomics/status/793435785097646081...
by xiphias on 11/17/16, 4:46 PM
https://petertodd.org/2016/cypherpunk-desert-bus-zcash-trust...
by alvarosm on 11/17/16, 5:03 PM
In practice Zcash/zcoin (different tradeoffs) are of no use to you unless you are willing to go the extra mile to hide something (criminal activities and such). There's no point in paying for the extra effort for normal transactions.
by nickik on 11/17/16, 6:30 PM
by prashnts on 11/17/16, 5:41 PM
by Walkman on 11/17/16, 5:15 PM
https://keybase.io/inv/81ae92fb55
https://keybase.io/inv/1405ab98be
https://keybase.io/inv/841bcaf887
https://keybase.io/inv/1b2d6b8489
https://keybase.io/inv/d4d629e661
https://keybase.io/inv/aa8d6f88a7
https://keybase.io/inv/1e2d324856
https://keybase.io/inv/ed26718971
https://keybase.io/inv/3b60a5f56d
https://keybase.io/inv/c11ebfb7ac
Sold out.
by atweiden on 11/17/16, 6:41 PM
This news spurred me to delete my Keybase account. I regret ever giving a corporation that much control over my personal privacy.
[1] https://github.com/libbitcoin/libbitcoin-explorer/wiki/Steal...