Announcing Ycash, The First "Friendly Fork" of the Zcash Blockchain

[mistfpga]

As posted by mr hloo earlier in a link in this thread. (he calls this this advanced way, I call it the safe way)

These are the only two methods which will not allow anyone potential access to your zec by trying to claim yec (the are essentially the same thing just in a different order, and ordering is important)

my method is safer and the only one that guarantees to stop anyone potentially deshielding your zcash transactions via ycash privkeys

EDIT: the ycash foundations advice is fine to follow if you are transferring off an exchange. My advice is if you run a local node/wallet and already have possession of your private keys, and want to keep using those priv/pub key pair.

@Ycash Foundation's post on Medium.

1. Obtain Custody: By block height 569,900 (100 blocks before the fork), make sure that all of your ZEC is associated with private keys in your custody. Let’s call this set of addresses associated with these private keys “Address Set M”.
2. Wait 100 blocks.
3. Fork occurs at block height 570,000.
4. Wait 100 blocks, until block height 570,100.
5. Export the private keys associated with Address Set M
6. Transfer your ZEC to one or more new addresses, which we will call Address Set N.
7. Import the private keys associated with Address Set M into YecWallet.
8. Allow YecWallet to rescan the blockchain. (This may take several hours.)

Things to note, 100 blocks after the fork you transfer all your zec to a new private key. then use your old key in the YEC software. - This imho is bad advice unless it is 100% necessary to do it like this. (see edit at the top about transferring of an exchange for the sole purpose of getting yec, then will transfer back onto the exchange before you try to claim your YEC)

If you have a public ZEC address and want to keep using it and claim your YEC without compromising your current ZEC privkey.

My method (trying to use the ycash foundations terminology)

• tried and trusted mechanism for any fork.
• This protects against nefarious wallet creators. (they can only steal your yec and have no potential to deshiled your zec transactions, nor zec or future zec that may appear.)

@My method or probably more known as the safe method

• Way before the fork. like 1000 blocks or more before. I’d do it now (but I am not claiming any yec)
• Create a new zcash pub/priv key pair (we will call this set ZN1)
• You need to transfer all the ZEC you have currently under your own priv key we will call this set ZM1) to the new keypair (set ZN1)
• Wait 100 blocks after the fork
• Transfer ZEC back to old privkey address. (Transfer ZEC from ZN1 back to ZM1)
• Now export the pub/privkey for the wallet ZN1
• Import pub/priv key pair for wallet ZN1 into YEC, making it YM1.
• Because their is only one transaction (maybe change) and you have that pubkeys already you shouldn’t need to rescan the whole blockchain, your coins only appeared in the last few blocks so just import the addresses.

Now there is no correlation between YM1 and ZM1

@hloo feel free to update your instructions with this info. It could be useful for people that want to keep their ZEC pub/priv key pair and have potential deshielding concerns.

This is a better method than giving the old privkeys away which could be a security concern if they could scan the yec blockchain to see what historical spends that privkey had done on the zcash blockchain. (the ycash blockchain is identical up until that point)

Please follow my method and generate a new zec pub/privkey pair for this, if you value your privacy.

As for air gapping and computer hygiene there is a thread for that over here

• Articles about Privacy and Security

If you don’t want to read through that at least go to the EFF and look at their stuff

• https://ssd.eff.org/