A Seductive Privacy Proposition: The ZClassic-Bitcoin Hard Fork

Do we need privacy if we have nothing to hide? Of course, we do. Exercising privacy is our natural right: by reinforcing this right we commend respect to each other.Money is one of the most sacred constructs humanity designed to date. Money embodies financial freedom, abundant time (we can buy time by paying more for things we do not want to waste our time on), and control. Money does not buy us happiness but it surely buys us freedom and time.We deserve privacy with respect to how we make, invest and store money as long as our actions do not cause harm to others. The rise of cryptocurrency has given many an opportunity of attaining all of the above.

Bitcoin

Bitcoin provides decentralized storage and anonymity but it does not provide privacy. Since Bitcoin has a ledger of all transactions, it is fairly easy to trace each participant down to their Internet protocol address. Bitcoin is not technically encrypted, thus it is an anonymous digital currency.

 ZCash

Zero Cash (ZEC) value proposition embodies several coveted principles: the maximum number of all minted coins is limited by the source code to 21 million coins.ZCash is a peer-to-peer permissionless digital currency encrypted with zero-knowledge protocol - zk-SNARKS (Zero-Knowledge Succinct Non-Interactive Argument of Knowledge). Zk-SNARKS enables one party to prove to another party that a statement is true without divulging specifics about the statement. Zk-SNARKS checks validity of the statement, or the equation, and protects it privacy so that neither the prover nor the verifier knows what it exactly is.

ZClassic

ZClassic (ZCL) emerged from ZCash in 2017 removing the 20% miner fee from ZCash protocol. ZClassic differs from ZCash by the absence of the minting maximum. The developer wanted to avoid intentional scarcity and to let the market to set the price. With respect to its value proposition, ZClassic may be an inferior choice to ZCash for those investors who use scarcity as the main parameter in the value assessment process.All in all, ZClassis still uses ZCash superior encryption that ensures privacy of transactions.

 Bitcoin Meets ZClassic: Bitcoin Private

On February 28 of 2018 ZClassic and Bitcoin blockchains will fork into Bitcoin Private. Bitcoin Private (BTCP) will solve the privacy problem Bitcoin Core had and will integrate the best features of Bitcoin and ZClassic. The two primary features of the new blockchain are privacy and speed. Bitcoin Private will implement zk-SNARKS encryption protocol to obfuscate transactional identification data. Bitcoin Private will also have a larger block which will ensure its superior speed.

Bitcoin Private Match

Owners of ZClassic and Bitcoin will receive a 1:1 match of Bitcoin Private. For instance, if you own 7 ZClassic coins  on the day of the fork, you'll receive 7 Bitcoin Private tokens. The same rule applies to Bitcoin.To ensure eligibility, it is best to keep ZClassic and Bitcoin in an offline wallet such as Electrum. For ZClassic, the developer recommends Electrum.Electrum definitely beats othe wallet options The official ZClassic website offers two wallets - Eleos and Electrum. However, after testing Eleos wahas a propensity for not loading the wallet interface on demand due to some problems with private keys. The thread with tips on resolving the issue can be found on Reddit here. I chose the more robust version - Electrum.Also, in order to retrieve the reward in the form of Bitcoin Private, you will have to provide your private key.Bitcoin Private offers the best features of ZClassic and Bitcoin and may eventually lead the growing crypto market.