Is Zcash viable as a worldwide payment system/currency? Why or why not?
1 Like
Zcash gets 0 of 10 for the wallet segment (agree) and then gets a -5 because of privacy?
The author missed an extremely important aspect of a digital currency which is: fungibility
2 Likes
Yeah, I feel the privacy should be +5 not -5
2 Likes
It should be higher than +5…while not 10, since that’s perfect, I’d say a +7 is fair. The other “privacy” junk out there is zero…what they use is nonsense from a cryptological perspective.
Explaination of the author:
There are always some items left on a coin that have a negative impact specifically on that coin. Therefore, a final table has been made where “penalty” points can be scored.
For example, a number of coins are very well-focused on the privacy and anonymity of the users and their actions on the blockchain. But if crypto really wants to become a means of payment, the crypto world cannot escape regulation. It is therefore inevitable that the privacy and anonymity of users will come under fire. If the coins that have made privacy/anonymity their most important unique selling point, that coin will never be able to develop fully and will have a marginalized existence. Therefore, a privacy focused coin with -5 points is assessed.
Actually it makes sense in the context of “new payment system”. Let’s take Japan for example. It would be even a -10 there at the moment.
You simply can’t have a viable “currency” with every single transaction being open to the public. It will never be sufficient for businesses, government, the average joe to have their entire payment history exposed and tracked by anyone at anytime.
I fundamentally disagree with the author on this one.
4 Likes
out of curiousity. The author concludes that these coins are “under fire” and i think he is correct about this one as this is what we all see as well, not? Japan as the very best example.
About transaction histories. Actually with nearly every coin you can use a different wallet adress for each transaction. I can’t see how the “whole history” of transactions for a given person is exposed when someone uses his different wallet adresses and what is recommended anyway?
In the context of new widely used payment system i tend to agree with the author that at the current state privacy coins like Zcash, Monero face problems, hence the -5 he gave. Once the landscap changes this may change as well, but currently it doesn’t seem like it will change soon. But that’s just my opinion and that i agree to the logic behind the authors comment/rating.
It’s not realistic to expect users to change thier behavior for Cryptocurrency. How many users do you think would go though the extra steps to constantly generate new addresses for thier transactions? How often should you generate a new address to ensure privacy? You can safely assume that user behavior will default to the simplest solution, to keep using the same “account” over and over again just like they do with thier bank account. Because cycling addresses is confusing and leads to an accounting nightmare.
That’s the beauty of an open, permission-less, worldwide immutable currency. ̶I̶t̶’̶s̶ ̶n̶o̶t̶ ̶s̶u̶b̶j̶e̶c̶t̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶r̶u̶l̶e̶s̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶a̶ ̶V̶e̶n̶e̶z̶u̶e̶l̶a̶n̶ ̶d̶i̶c̶t̶a̶t̶o̶r̶ ̶o̶r̶ ̶J̶a̶p̶a̶n̶e̶s̶e̶ ̶r̶e̶g̶u̶l̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶s̶.̶
(Edit: I should note that I don’t speak for Zcash Company or Zcash Foundation with regards to compliance with any regulations. I was referring to the fact that you can’t really “shut down” any Cryptocurrency.)
I agree with @Shawn here. I dont see any currency with public viewed blockchain ever getting accepted as payment system.
Say you go to the market, buy something small, the guy there can track down how much currency you have, follows you home and robs you blind (forces you under a threat of a gun to send him all your crypto). It has happened so many times to people with Bitcoin.
Bitcoin is ok for lets say sending money from country to country, but as a everyday payment system, its not good at all.
1 Like
Writing such an article and not knowing about viewing keys and their potential use makes the article of little value …
Viewing keys are a huge feature of Zcash.
3 Likes
Transaction privacy is nice but the bulk of merchants out there would just roll their eyes at the thought of a ten minute (or worse) confirmation time. Even five or, for that matter, one minute delays are clunky and stupid. If the network can’t offer an instant payment method, who do they think they’re kidding by even dreaming of stepping into payment system territory? btw There are other networks chasing this payment system claim that do have instant transactions - and some even attempt to implement transaction privacy.
LN does that for BTC, our flavour of that is BOLT & think its on the Blossom todo list.
1 Like
Thank you for reminding me.
But also - Show me the merchants! 
Agree 
Zcash needs speed (even though we don’t use near our network capacity at the moment) and ease of use to be a serious contender.
1 Like
what about US or EU regulations? just in theory …
1 Like
The GDPR mandates online vendors must protect whatever customers personal information they possess and its really not unreasonable to think it’ll happen in the US as well (like in that recent article with Zookos SSL online retail analogy, opposed because criminals, now required)
Probably off-topic, I’ve been playing with lnd & noticed this option in the help messages
–alias= The node alias. Used as a moniker by peers and intelligence services
@ChileBob I assume you are talking about lightning network? I believe it supports custom Node names to make it easier to identify who is running the node. Like you see in this visualization of the LN: https://camo.githubusercontent.com/17ce5995184c1f09fd0250160725ca599cba331a/68747470733a2f2f692e696d6775722e636f6d2f646551796237322e6a7067