GUIDE: What is Zcash?

The origin: academic cryptography turned into money

Zcash was born from academic work. In 2014, a group of cryptographers from universities including Johns Hopkins, MIT, Tel Aviv, and Technion published Zerocash, a protocol that allowed verifying payments without revealing their data thanks to a type of mathematical proof called zk-SNARK.

To put that idea into practice, a company led by Zooko Wilcox-O'Hearn, a veteran of free software and cryptography, was created. The Zcash mainnet launched on October 28, 2016. Today, the protocol is primarily maintained by the Electric Coin Company and the Zcash Foundation, a non-profit organization, alongside other community-funded teams.

From the beginning, Zcash copied Bitcoin's monetary policy: a maximum of 21 million coins, issued through mining with rewards that halve approximately every four years. The 2020 and 2024 halvings followed that schedule.

How Zcash privacy works

In Bitcoin, anyone can see on the blockchain which address sends how much to which other address. Zcash offers two types of addresses. Transparent ones work just like in Bitcoin and everything remains in plain sight. Shielded ones use zero-knowledge proofs: the network verifies that the transaction is valid and that no one spends the same money twice, but the sender, recipient, and amount remain encrypted.

A zero-knowledge proof allows you to prove that something is true without revealing the information that proves it. Applied to a payment, it is like proving you have a sufficient balance without showing your account. The user can also share a viewing key with whomever they choose, such as an auditor or the tax authority, to show their movements voluntarily.

The technology has improved significantly over the years. The 2018 Sapling upgrade made shielded transactions much faster and viable on mobile, and the arrival of Orchard in 2022, based on the Halo 2 proof system, eliminated the need for the controversial initial trusted setup ceremony that earlier versions had.

The network is secured by proof of work using the Equihash algorithm, and the community has been studying a gradual transition toward a model with proof of stake components for some time.

What Zcash is used for and how to invest in ZEC

ZEC is used as digital money with optional privacy: for peer-to-peer payments, donations, or to store value without publicly exposing financial history. This privacy also generates regulatory friction, and some exchanges have limited or delisted the coin in certain countries, especially for shielded addresses.

There are two main ways to invest. You can buy ZEC directly on an exchange and store it in your own wallet that supports shielded addresses, or buy an exchange-traded product. In Europe, Zcash ETPs already exist and can be bought from a standard brokerage account, such as the one from Virtune launched in October 2026.

As an investment, Zcash is a niche asset, highly volatile and sensitive to both interest in privacy and regulatory news. Invest only what you can afford to lose and keep in mind that, just like with any cryptocurrency, gains must be declared.