So, a few reasons I don't like Zcash.
1) If you see a great FOSS project, w/ network effects & traction, before you decide to just fork it into your own pet project, I think logic & morality impose you to study the existing one, understand it, try to contribute to it AMAP.
1) If you see a great FOSS project, w/ network effects & traction, before you decide to just fork it into your own pet project, I think logic & morality impose you to study the existing one, understand it, try to contribute to it AMAP.
2) That's even more true if we are talking about a project aimed to build an infrastructure-level, open standard, were convergence & stability are paramount, & not about a consumption-layer, proprietary product or service, were competition & (fast) evolution are paramount.
3) That's yet even more true if you are lucky enough to run into a potentially game-changing revolution like Bitcoin, facing enormous challenges & bearing potential benefits for all humankind. Responsibility should be greater than impatience, vanity, greed or curiosity, here.
4) In case of Bitcoin & privacy, furthermore, we are talking about something somehow broken, and yet of the utmost importance for the success of the whole project: so many things to work on! Joinmarket, zerolink, tumblebit, channels, sig aggregation & scriptless scripts, etc!
5) If you really have to fork BTC to work on your privacy improvements (meh), you should try to leverage some of the existing network effects, for altruistic (you don't drain from the original project) as well as selfish (you don't have to bootstrap again from scratch) reasons.
6) If you cannot leverage tech, you should at least leverage the ASSET, because trying to replicate the "digital gold" value proposition is both incredibly unlikely on one hand, & highly damaging to the BTC "digital scarcity" proposition on the other, if successful.
7) Goal described in 6 could be pursued trying to build a 2-Way-Pegged SideChain (first best, very difficult still unsolved, cf: ) or, at least, a somehow honest 1-Way-Peg Proof-of-Burn Chain, avoiding dilution of value.
8) If you really, really have to create a new "digital gold", competing w/ BTC & damaging its scarcity, at least you should bootstrap it "fairly", a-la-Satoshi, w/ open mining, no ICO, no premine, no instsmine (profit seeking isn't bad per se, just out of place in this context).
9) Zcash (I start moving from global altcoin objections to specific ones) chosed the ugliest & less socially scalable of all the possible profit-seeking schemes while creating its new (unnecessary) token: a hardwired, fixed fee sent to a centralized US-based legal entity.
10) This centralized US-based legal entity stuff is not just bery ugly as the profit-seeking scheme, but also a farce in general! If it was realistic to bootstrap, promote & maintain anonymous digital currencies w/ shuch structures, we would not need BTC: e-gold would just do!
11) Of all the centralized legal structures you could think of, furthermore, a US-based (!!!) for profit company sounds actually like a joke, for a privacy-related project. It sounds more like an honeypot, actually, than like a joke. Tinfoilhat? Maybe. But very ugly.
12) Than we move to the actual technology. Privacy is important: for somebody it could represent the difference between life & death. If you want real people to use your privacy stuff in real life you should be conservative, cautious, responsible. It's not an idle academic paper.
13) First way Zcash guys (indeed mostly academics, what a surprise) violated 12 was using new, exotic crypto, instead of waiting for consolidation. Zk-SNARKs were a nice new toy, but they've been already (predictably) surpassed by other stuff, lighter & w/o trusted setups.
14) About the "lighter" part: z-txs are heavy&slow, thus expensive. Here comes the 2nd way they violated 12: optional privacy (unlike Monero), w/ strong disincentives to use it. People will always prefer t-adds to z-adds, ceteris paribus. Result: ridiculously small anonimity set.
15) This is connected w/ one of the main reason I don't like the project: this problem aren't communicated honestly, & instead buried under marketing & pump. I know a lot of people who thought they were "anonymous", while using t-adds or z-adds w/ trivia anon sets. Irresponsible.
16) This could have been avoided just holding off greed & staying in R&D phase for few years, waiting for tech evolution & consolidation: zkSTARKS, zkBOOS, bulletproof, etc. In many cases you can now have lighter/faster stuff, that could be made non-optional. W/o trusted setup.
17) About trusted setup: the way they organized/deployed it seemed unprofessional & irresponsible as well. Engagement of people for a potentially safety-critical operation was done on Twitter, no focus at all on personal security, like anonymity vs governments is a game (or 🍯?).
18) I will not go into details about the point less security circus of the actual cerimony: @peterktodd already explained why most of that was pointless & misleading. Zcash folks reactions to these kind of critics were piqued, dismissive & snooty.
19) These problems w/ trusted setup are expecially painful because of the "imperfectly binding" choice. An inflation attack couldn't be detected & managed like it could in a clear-text amounts scenario, like Btc. Sure, they'll "do it better the next time": w/ even more spotlight.
20) This is not to say I dislike Zcash guya. @Zooko was always nice to me, in person & online, I like him. I love J. Grigg. I respect many people who somehow contributed to that project, or who are Zcash enthusiasts. I even asked them a sticker & a t-shirt (because of the Z😂).
21) Of course, speaking of the "Team", the presence among the advisors of known scammers like Vitalik Buterin, or compromised people like Gavin Andresen, or people from Tezos...well...not the kind of face you would want involved in any serious project. At all.
22) Admittedly, points 1 to 8 aren't Zcash specific, but valid for every other altcoin (point 8 is satisfied by a few honest altcoin like Namecoin, Siacoin, Monero). I made (less extensively) similar points re: Ethereum (which I consider way MORE scammy):
*"not just very ugly as profit-seeking" scheme"
*"these problems aren't communicated honestly"
*"about the pointless security circus"
*"this kind of criticisms"
*"this kind of criticisms"
*"I dislike Zcash guys"
