Exactly one year ago, the launch of the decentralized payment system Zcash took place. Despite some criticism addressed to him, after 12 months the project, whose goal is called the creation of "Internet money", can be considered, if not fully fulfilled, then at least fairly firmly on its feet.


Zuko Wilcox, the founder of the Zcash project

Recall, Zcash is based on the Zerocash protocol, which is designed to ensure the anonymity and confidentiality of transaction metadata while maintaining the overall decentralized structure and the publicly accessible blockbuster.

To make Zerocash more effective, zk-SNARK (zero-knowledge Succinct Non-interactive ARgument of Knowledge) technology was used, which can be viewed as a new form of cryptographic evidence of zero disclosure.

One of the main tasks of zk-SNARK is to provide complete encryption of transactions in the block system and protect related metadata. In other words, zk-SNARK can also be called a kind of mechanism by which you can prove the possession of information without disclosing the fact itself and without any interaction between the parties.



Upgrades

Since the launch of the project, Zcash developers have released a total of 12 upgrades to the official client of the protocol, the last of which, under the number 1.0.12, took place on September 28. Internal procedures have also been improved, including an upgrade release cycle and a security procedure to investigate potential vulnerabilities that pose a heightened risk to users.


Paige Peterson, Community Manager, Zcash

"We can proudly say that none of the bugs in the code led to a loss of funds or loss of privacy," says Zcash Community Manager Paige Peterson.
Integration

Back in May, Zerocoin Electric Coin Company (ZECC), the company behind Zcash, announced the beginning of cooperation with one of the world's leading banks J.P. Morgan. As part of this cooperation, Zcash technology will be integrated into the corporate blockbuster platform Quorum. In October, the integration was completed.

Also, the integration of zk-SNARK technology into the Ethereum block system looks quite interesting. Back in September, zk-SNARK's zero-denial evidence was successfully verified in the Byzantium test network, and in early October, as a result of the hard-core, the protocol was also implemented in the main network of Ethereum.

Zcash Foundation

In March 2017, ZECC CEO Zuko Wilcox announced the creation of the Zcash Foundation, a non-profit organization whose main goal is to finance the further development of the project. In addition, the Zcash Foundation deals with education in the field of crypto-currencies, technologies that provide online privacy, and computer networks that manage these tools. The organization also supports open scientific research in the field of evidence of zero disclosure and related cryptographic technologies, and is actively helping to build a decentralized Zcash network as an open public infrastructure.

As Zuko Wilcox himself noted, the Zcash Foundation is an independent unit and acts independently from both itself and ZECC.