Zeroing In: Zcash Sets 2-Year Course for Better Crypto Privacy

Speaking at Zcon0, zcash's first ever conference in Montreal, Tuesday, project founder and the CEO of the Zcash Company Zooko Wilcox discussed the company's informal roadmap for the next two-year period.

As research builds toward scalability and transitioning the blockchain into privacy by default, zcash is reaching the stage where it can fully confront these issues.

Lee also warned that users need to be better informed about the difference between the transparent and shielded transactions on zcash.

It's notable considering, as detailed by Maller, transparent transactions on the zcash blockchain can damage the privacy of shielded addresses as well.

While there's challenges to transitioning to a fully private system, and plenty of tooling that needs to be constructed as well, now that zcash has built the basis of the protocol developers have time to research these kinds of more substantial changes.

Featuring GPU miners, ASIC miners, representatives from ASIC manufacturers Bitmain, Innosilicon and Obelisk, as well as the Zcash Company and the Zcash Foundation, the workshop resolved to commit to a timeline for the issue.

Members of the Zcash Company said that a decision needs to be reached prior to the Sapling upgrade in October, in order to allow developers ample time to prepare for changes, if any are required.

Still, as well as the various technical challenges: easy-to-use wallets often come with privacy trade-offs, and there's plenty of tooling that needs to be created before zcash can transition into a fully private system, shadowing the presentations was the challenges such changes pose for governance.

Led by the Zcash Foundation, an independent entity that offloads some of the decision-making power from the Zcash Company, zcon0 is the first steps toward a more decentralized governance structure.

"Sustainability is a critical question that the community has to decide for itself," Wilcox said, "The question is, how should the development of zcash be funded after the funding ends in two years?".