This year saw a huge upsurge in demand for anonymous coins that enable users to hide both their identity and the transaction amount. ZCash is the second-biggest confidential network by market cap with $1.4 billion. On 11 May, the project's developers announced its upcoming 5.0.0 update, which prompted the coin to rise by 37% from its local low. 

ZCash uses the zk-SNARK protocol in which transactions are encrypted and authenticated via a zero-knowledge proof mechanism. This enables one party to prove to the other that the transaction is genuine without revealing any information from the approval process. Simply put, you don't need to have all the necessary information to carry out a transaction and ensure that it is verified as required. 

The first zero-knowledge proof protocols required several rounds of exchanging information to confirm that a transaction was indeed approved. Now, all that is necessary is one message, while the size of the actual proof is less than one kilobyte, and the verification process takes just a few milliseconds.

On 31 May, the NU5 update will take place on Block 1,687,104, implementing the Orchard protected payment protocol and Halo proof system. The update will make it possible for users to perform confidential and secure transactions on mobile devices. According to ZCash founder Brice Wilcox, NU5 is a historic step for the whole of mankind since it will bring zero-knowledge proof to everyday technology.

ZCash benefits from a high level of protection and relies on miners in much the same way as Bitcoin. Bitcoin, however, is a public network, something which fraudsters can use to their advantage by tracking wallets making major transactions and thus identifying future potential victims. Furthermore, senders may compromise themselves when sending transactions to "undesirable" individuals. With ZCash, these risks are eliminated. 

In April 2022, it was revealed that one member of the ZCash launch ceremony was Edward Snowden. As the ex-NSA employee put it, "you can't have truly free trade unless you have private trade. And you can't have a free society without free trade".

StormGain analytical group

(cryptocurrency trading, exchange and storage platform)