CRYPTO ACADEMY WEEK 16 HOMEWORK POST FOR [@LEVYCORE]||PRIVACY COIN

Hello steemains

Nice to be part of another great lecture from @steemitCryptoAcademy. Thanks to @levycore for such an interesting lecture this week on Privacy coins.

INTRODUCTION

Privacy coins are simply cryptocurrencies that their transactions are made to be unanimous and untraceable on the blockchain. With the use of these coins for transactions in crypto market, the identity of the sender and reciever is not made visible on the crypto marketplace and the transactions carried out by them is also not seen, hence the whole transaction process is made private. Some examples of Privacy coins are Monero, Dash, Zcash, Beam etc.

In terms of this week’s homework I will talk about Zcash.

ZCASH

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Zcash is one of the well known Privacy Coins. Zcash is a cryptocurrency is the digitial token of Zcash network, which is a decentralized blockchain built with the code database of Bitcoin and similar to Bitcoin in many aspects, except for the fact that Zcash has a higher level of privacy and fungibility in it's transactions, but both coins harnasses the Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus algorithms for its transaction.

Zcash is privacy coin, increases it's users privacy by the use of a crytographic device known as zk-SNARKs which means Zero-Knowledge Proofs. This transaction tool makes it possible to validate transactions, without revealing the details of both parties during transactions, so it doesn't compromise a user's privacy. The two users engages in a transaction without either of them knowing each other's payment address(the sender nor the reciever can't see each others payment address) and so the transaction remains untraceable on the blockchain. This is one major reason for the invention of this privacy coin.

Zcash was first developed in 2013 by Johns Hopkins professor Matthew Green and some of his graduate students and it's development was later completed by the Zcash Company, led by Zooko Wilcox and the Zcash privacy coin was first minted in late October 2016.

In the crypto world, transactions with cryptocurrency are transpent and as time went by users demanded for some sort of privacy, the demand for privacy increased as cryptocurrency users understood that their transactions were so transparent and are easily traceable in the blockchain. As such the innvotation of a private coin to restrain user's information and protect their privacy came into action, so these privacy coins where created including Zcash. So, Zcash was invented to solve the problem of no-privacy which is associated with Bitcoin and other crypto transactions on the blockchain.

Zcash Transactions

Zcash privacy coin supports four types of transactions, with either a private address (z-address) or a transparent address (t-address). The transaction types include;

▪︎PUBLIC TRANSACTION
This type of transaction occurs between two transparent addresses and acts exactly like Bitcoin transactions, as the the informations of the transaction are seen publicly on the Zcash blockchain.

▪︎SHIELDING TRANSACTION
A shielding transaction occurs between a t-address(or transparent address) and a z-address(or shielding address). In this transaction the balance of the sender( t-address) and the amount being transferred is made public, while the balance of the receiving(z-address) is kept anonymous

▪︎DESHIELDING TRANSACTION
Zcash with deshielding transaction occurs between the z-address and t-address. Here, the balance of the z-address(sender) is private, but the amount being transferred out and the balance of the receiving address (t-address) is made public.

▪︎PRIVATE TRANSACTION
A private transaction occurs between two z-addresses. Here, the balance of both z-addresses and the amount being transferred between them is kept anonymous.

Some notable features of ZCASH(ZEC) incudes;

▪︎Low transaction fee: Zcash transactions are fast with low transaction fees of 0.001 Zcash.

▪︎Blockchain: it is a decentralized blockchain,that is safe, fast and secure.

▪︎Address: it has two types of addresses, which are
a.The shielded address in which the transactions details are private.

b.The transparent address in which transaction details are made public.

▪︎Payment disclosure: The sender or receiver, either discloses their transactions details to a third-party if needed for auditing or visibility.

FUNDAMENTAL ANALYSIS OF ZCASH

Screenshot of fundamental Analysis of Zcash

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As at the time of writing this post the fundamental Analysis for Zcash are as follows, as seen above.
The price of Zcash is at $157.96, with a market Cap price of $1.88B, Total Market at $1.67T and at 0.11%, Volume of Zcash is $511.01M. Zcash has a circulation supply
of 11.89 coins. In total Zcash coin analysis is at 80.15%. It has a transaction speed of 6-26 transactions per second(TPS).

A one week chart analysis of Zcash

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The fundamentals analysis of Zcash for a week period, between Wednesday May 5th 2021 to Thursday Jun 3rd 2021, the price range of Zcash is between $256.45 and $172.22, and has a min/max price of $92.42 and $368.22.
Its market cap is at a range of $3.00 B and $2.05 B, with a min/max of $1.18 B and $4.22 B, a median of $2.16 B and a seven day moving average of $2.04 B.
The trading volume of Zcash ranged between $475.06 M and $3.78 B, with a median of $1.69 B and a seven day moving average of $604.10 M.

HOW TO CREATE A ZCASH WALLET
I would be using the Android version of the Zcash wallet to create the wallet.

STEP 1
First go to Playstore on an android phone and install the app.

After the wallet has been successfully installed, you click on Open icon and it takes you to the homepage of Zcash wallet

STEP 2
On the homepage, you click on sign up or login via email it takes you to next page.

You will see two head write ups; SIGN IN AND SIGN UP, click on SIGN UP
and fill in the Email and password space. Then you click on SIGN UP

This page pops up👇 asking you to create PIN code. When you create the pin another page comes up asking you to Please repeat the PIN again for confirmation.

The next page pops up👇 here you put your desired username(i used Krisani) and agree to the Terms and Conditions of Zcash wallet, then click on SIGN UP

The next page comes up and you have successfully signed up for a Zcash wallet

STEP 3
Next you click on the settings icon at the top right of the page,

It takes you to the settings of the wallet, here you can see the security of the wallet is weak, you then proceed to make it strong.

STEP 4
Click on Email Confirmation, it takes you to next page, when the Email Confirmation page comes up, you fill in your email address for confirmation and click on VERIFY

Email verification in progress

Now I log in to my Gmail to verify the process, I open the mail sent and click on VERIFY below the page

Then I go back to Settings on Zcash wallet and see that the Email Confirmation is successfully

STEP 5
Next I click on Limit to make it strong, it takes me to the next page

I fill in the limit amount I want per week and click on CONFIRM

This pops up and I click on YES

The next page shows that have successfully set limit amount.

Now my security level is at medium (note that you can still go further to make it strong). You can logout now as your Zcash wallet is ready.

HOW CAN I RECIEVE ZCASH
First Log in to your Zcash wallet, click on Recieve

Another page shows, copy the recieve address and send it to the user that intends to send ZEC to the wallet

Alternatively, I can decide to generate a new address just like I have done.

HOW TO SEND ZCASH TO ANOTHER USER

Log on to Zcash wallet, on the next page click on send

![20210603_072755.jpg](

Enter the address of the reciever and chose the cryptocurrency to be sent , i chose EOS(EOS)

The next page shows a memo where you state the reason for sending the coins. I fill it and click on next

The next page, shows a service charge of 0.001 ZEC

Note: I couldn't complete the transaction due to lack of funds in my Zcash wallet.

STEP 2
Alternatively,I can use the email address of the reciever instead. I click on the User ID or Email icon

It takes me to next page, i fill in the receiver email and click next

Next page shows the end of the transaction, with a service charge of 0.001 ZEC

Note: I couldn't complete the transaction due to lack of funds in my Zcash wallet.

WHY I CHOSE ZCASH

I chose Zcash because of its unique anonymous feature it offers its users which is not found with bitcoin Transactions. Transactions woth Zcash are quickly confirmed and with low transaction fees.

Zcash is a privacy coin that can be traded, sent and received via mobile phone, computer or digital wallet.
And as a decentralized blockchain It offers every user equal access, irrespective of the social or demographic status of the users

Zcash is the most traded cryptocurrency and is tradeable (that is exchanged) with other Cryptocurrencies. It has a high market capitalization, supply and trading volume. This factors shows that Zcash has an amazing future in the cryptocurreny world.

ADVANTAGES OF ZCASH

▪︎PRIVACY
ZCash is specifically invented to help keep transactions of users as private and anonymous as possible, to prevent fraudulent activities by malicious actors on addresses of user's with huge amount of currency.

▪︎SECURITY
Zcash token is very secure as it built-in new zero-knowledge technology(zk-SNARKS Technology), this security system helps verify relations between different digital transactions without making it public or transparent.

▪︎TRANSACTION FEE
It has a low transaction fee as low as 0.001Zec

▪︎EASY MINING
Zcash are easily mined with an open GPU hardware with no cost, which is more affordable and also less energy is required when mining, as compared to other POW mining rigs.

▪︎FUNGIBILITY
Zcash coin can be used to exchange other Cryptocurrencies. The interchangeability Zcash makes it a very flexible and effective crypto coin to use.

DISADVANTAGES OF ZCASH

▪︎LEGAL ISSUES
The high privacy maintenance with Zcash transactions can be are barrier in solving some legal issues. Because transactions are made private, and there's no way of tracing fraudulent activities of any user. This makes ZCash an unsuitable coin for trustworthiness users.

▪︎MINING ONLY WITH CPU
This is one major defect of Zcash, because it is primarily designed for Linux users and is restricted to CPU mining, Although, it can be used on Windows or MAC.

CONCLUSION
The innovation of Privacy coins have help limit the issue of identity visibility.
Zcash is a secure privacy coin, with fair and low cost transaction fee, that seems to have a good future in the crypto world.

Thank you for reading through and Warm regards to @levycore.