This is a long and rambling post, sry.
I have been thinking about this during times of insomnia.
What is the difference?
The way I see it is adoption is people using the coin and usecases are why someone would want to use the coin.
I know this is kinda of preaching to the choir, but I think everyone here knows the why. This is not as important to others. Especially since we are not used to having or really needing financial privacy in the west. (if you are not breaking any laws why do you need to hide - yeah that argument makes me feel sick too)
So, if BTC is going to be gold, that’s cool. I don’t thing zec will be able to dethrone it. I also think maybe zec shouldn’t try. Gold is very far from anonymous in the western world or in 1st or 2nd world countries. But it still carries that “no serial number stamp” to it in peoples minds (though it isn’t in reality) - where as cash everyone knows is the choice for anonymous transactions and day to day stuff (although this is getting phased out with RFID and EMV)
Where does this leave us? What are ZEC’s use cases? How do we promote these to people?
I genuinely fear about blockchain analytics. I remember back on bitcointalk having an argument with someone about how BTC was an accounts wet dream. - I am now of the opinion that this is fine for btc. and maybe zec wont be the ultimate goal but I strongly thin zcash is. (thanks @tromer for giving me the insight that zec is a really good way to fund zcash - I never viewed it like this before)
So what are the usecases? Is a lower market cap beneficial to zec? I honestly think it might be. for example the largest denomination fiat note im my country is 50gbp (although 100gbp from Scotland is legal, and 500euro notes are accepted at supermarkets) and with the natural bias to think you need 1 coin or “1 of something” to be able to use it/make it worthwhile, it puts zec’s lower marketcap in an interesting position.
is the goal to get zcash used or to get zec to moon? I think these might be mutually exclusive.
How do you think is best to focus usecases? it feels that it is logical for adoption to follow usecases, so targeting specific groups (like @kek mentioned it could become the coin of dissidents. - have you dropped snowden yet??) could be beneficial but I think this might be too specific and would alienate others (the whole “if you haven’t got anything to hide why would you use that?” shebang) A good example of this would be bitchute v youtube. bitchute is considered to be the platform of the alt-right. Mainly because when you get banned from youtube/twitch/mixer you move to bitchute. Due to the polices of these tech companies it is the right wing that is demonised (I don’t care, all authoritarian regimes are bad. be it socialism or nationalism) so now bitchute is known as the platform for hitler wannabes.
it is pretty obvious that 99.9% of people don’t and wont care about financial privacy until it is too late. (debit cards, rfid cards, lack of support for privacy coins, bank transfers all point to this) and slightly fewer care a bit more about personal privacy (targeted advertising, facebook, linkedin, etc) and there is some pushback against companies that don’t follow decent personal privacy laws but very little pushback against financial privacy. (another example you can no longer do cash deposits to someone elses bank account due to “fraud” reasons)
I don’t have the answers. Id really like to hear what others think is the right way to proceed and what the ideal outcome would be. is it ZEC or zed-cash? are they incompatible?
How long did it take to get https as the default standard (even now it isn’t really).
anyway, I have forgotten what my point was. ah well, im going to go back to not sleeping.
I will edit this tomorrow when I can hopefully put my ideas down a bit better than I am at the moment. Please add questions/comments.
