Shielded payments on a Bitcoin-derived proof-of-work base.
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CoinGecko data; may be delayed.
80.6% of the achievable supply is already circulating.
$3,191.93 -64.17% · Oct 28, 2016
Source: CoinGecko, snapshot of Sep 13, 2026. Figures may be delayed.
Source: DefiLlama, data as of · Revenue is not reported by every protocol.. Figures are informational, not financial advice.
Zcash extends a Bitcoin-style proof-of-work monetary policy with optional shielded transactions: zk-SNARKs let two parties settle without publishing amounts or addresses, while transparent transactions remain available and are still the majority of activity. That duality is its identity. It offers the strongest cryptography-based privacy in large-cap crypto, but because shielding is optional, its practical privacy set is smaller than Monero's and its regulatory story is subtler.
Zcash is the strongest zk-cryptography in production among large-cap assets.
Optional privacy is both its regulatory bridge and its practical weakness.
Its halving schedule gives it a monetary narrative most privacy tech lacks.
Zcash's base ledger works like Bitcoin's: ~21 million ZEC cap, four-year halvings, miner-secured proof of work. The differentiator is the shielded pool. A shielded transfer encodes its inputs, outputs, and amounts inside a zero-knowledge proof that the chain can verify without seeing them, so the ledger confirms value conservation while publishing nothing about who paid whom. Users choose shielded or transparent per transaction, and cross-pool flows are visible by design, which is exactly where its privacy guarantees end.
Shielded transfers that hide counterparty and amount
Transparent transfers for regulated touchpoints
Long-horizon scarcity asset with Bitcoin-like issuance
ZEC captures value as the monetary unit of the only large network whose privacy is enforced by zk-proofs rather than mixing. There is no staking and no protocol revenue; demand rests on shielded settlement being worth something to users, and on the halving schedule mirroring Bitcoin's scarcity framing.
Zcash copies Bitcoin's schedule: a 21 million ZEC cap with halvings roughly every four years. One historically contentious detail is the founders' reward, a share of early block rewards directed to the Electric Coin Company and protocol development; it ended per the original schedule, after which distribution became purely miner-issued.
Protocol development is led by the Electric Coin Company with input from the Zcash Foundation and the community ZIP process; decisions run through documented ZIP proposals rather than token voting. The 2024 roadmap debate about proof-of-work's future showed a community that argues openly and ships slowly.
Most activity stays transparent, so the practical anonymity set is smaller than the cryptography suggests
Tracing across shielded-transparent boundaries is a live research area
Regulatory pressure on privacy assets can hit transparent-adjacent listings too
Development leadership is concentrated in one company, Electric Coin Company
Different models. A fully shielded Zcash transaction hides more than a Monero one in theory, but using it is optional, so the default Zcash experience leaks more than Monero's default. Monero hides everything for everyone; Zcash hides everything for whoever opts in. Which is more private depends on how many people actually use the shielded pool.
No. The original founders' reward, a slice of early block rewards for the Electric Coin Company and development, ended on the schedule set at launch. Today block rewards go to miners, with a separate development-funding mechanism decided by the community through ZIPS.
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Electric Coin Company / Zcash community · zips.z.cash · primary source
Shielded-pool mechanics, halving schedule, founders'-reward end date, and governance via ZIP proposals.
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Serves a comparable role, so the two are worth reading side by side.
Directory suggestion, pending verification.
Serves a comparable role, so the two are worth reading side by side.
Directory suggestion, pending verification.
Serves a comparable role, so the two are worth reading side by side.
Directory suggestion, pending verification.
