The fact that Zcash is a corporate coin domiciled in the USA is one of the reasons why we’ve decided to keep Zcash at such a small percentage in my portfolio compared to Monero. Zcash is clearly much more centralized in its development than Monero. In contrast, Monero had a fair and open launch, no miner tax, is not controlled by any company, but rather adheres to the FOSS ethos and philosophy. It is researched & developed by enthusiastic volunteers & some full time staff who receive recurring donations From individuals and businesses in the community for their work. This atmosphere draws some of the most brilliant minds and hackers to beef up the network’s security
( Monero - https://web.getmonero.org/resources/about/) (Fair and Open Launch - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=563821.0) (FOSS ethos - https://www.techopedia.com/definition/24181/free-and-open-source-software--foss) (Philosophy - https://freeopensourcesoftware.org/index.php/FOSS_Philosophy)
In the quest for digital cash, Monero firmly beats Zcash. In the 2016 article “On Fungibility, Bitcoin, Monero and why ZCash is a bad idea” by dnaelor, the owner of the website, WeUse.Cash has shared some helpful information comparing XMR to ZEC. This article explains the rise of blockchain analytics and Bitcoin tracing, and the growing need for a fungible digital cash where all transactions and balances are private by default. The author shares some information regarding the weaknesses and risks of Bitcoin mixers, CoinJoin, DASH, and how Monero avoids these risks. He also outlines the risks of Zcash, including its “trusted setup” (or cryptographic “toxic waste”) problem where an attacker could create invisible coins out of thin air without anyone else knowing - a topic which we will address in more detail in a section further below
(“On Fungibility, Bitcoin, Monero and why ZCash is a bad idea” https://weuse.cash/2016/06/09/btc-xmr-zcash/) ( https://weuse.cash/)
The folks behind the website LocalMonero have done a great job in creating a very informative article, “Why Monero is Better than Dash, Zcash, Zcoin (Even with Lelantus), Grin and Bitcoin Mixers Like Wasabi (Updated May 2020)” with a comparison chart and analysis of Monero (XMR) vs. other popular so-called privacy cryptocurrencies, including Dash, Zcash, Zcoin, Grin (Mimblewimble), and Bitcoin (BTC) mixers, as seen below.
(LocalMonero - https://localmonero.co/)
This article also mentions Zcash’s “trusted setup” problem, and the fact that Zcash’s transactions are public and transparent by default, and several of the other issues that we’ve already covered in this report. Since privacy isn’t mandated on Zcash’s network, this means that miners could censor certain transactions or blacklist certain coins/addresses, or even blacklist private
transactions in general (as i explained earlier). This results in some ZEC being less valuable than others, and undermines its fungibility.
In contrast, Monero (XMR) is indeed fungible. The article explains how Monero is both private and therefore fungible, since all balances, transaction amounts, sources, destinations, and wallet addresses, etc. are not publicly shown on the blockchain. Unlike the vast majority of other cryptocurrencies, Monero does not have a rich list, which is very important.
https://bitinfocharts.com/top-100-richest-dash-addresses.html
https://localmonero.co/blocks/richlist
Monero’s privacy, fungibility, unlinkability, and untraceability are enforced by Monero’s usage of stealth addresses, ring signatures, and Ring CT. Combined together, these technologies make it practically impossible for an observer to determine which funds have been spent, to link a transaction to a particular individual, or to determine the balance of one’s funds. The fact that Monero enforces all transactions on its network to use its privacy features vastly increases its anonymity set (especially as its network of users grows).
Monero is also optionally transparent. As explained in the diagram above, Monero users can voluntarily reveal transaction information via a view key. This can be useful for optionally revealing transaction information to selected parties, and can come in useful for auditing purposes, oversight of charities, or parents who are monitoring their children’s spending, just to name a few examples.
KEY - https://www.getmonero.org/resources/moneropedia/viewkey.html
In contrast to Monero, Zcash is not private in practice, as we have explained earlier. Remember that Zcash does not enforce privacy - it is transparent by default, and the vast majority of users do not use its privacy features.
explained earlier, it is well-known that zk-SNARKs are a strong privacy technology. Even Monero core contributor Riccardo “fluffypony” Spagni admitted this back in 2018. When comparing with Monero, he said that Zcash’s zk-SNARKs provided “much stronger untraceability characteristics than Monero (but a much smaller privacy set and much higher systemic risks)” at the time
2018, Monero has continued to upgrade its privacy features. As of the time of this writing, Monero has stronger ring signatures at a currently enforced ring size of 11, stealth addresses, Ring CT, and Dandelion++.
Within the past few years, Monero upgraded to bulletproofs to make the range proofs required for its Ring CT technology more compact and efficient. Monero’s Ring CT (ring confidential transactions) utilizes a cryptographic primitive for encoding called a Pedersen commitment to hide the amounts in its transactions. Bulletproofs themselves are a form of NIZKP, or non-interactive zero-knowledge proof which does not require a “trusted setup” (explained further below).
Bulletproofs - https://medium.com/digitalassetresearch/monero-becomes-bulletproof-f98c6408babf
Pedersen commitments - https://web.getmonero.org/resources/moneropedia/pedersen-commitment.html
Zero-knowledge proofs in the form of zk-SNARKs (as seen in ZEC) are a newer form of cryptographic technology than ring signatures. Ring signatures have been around for a while, and we know that they work well. The idea behind ring signatures began in a 1991 research paper co-authored by cryptographer David Chaum.-https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2F3-540-46416-6_22.pdf
cryptographic technology, are more experimental, and are less peer-reviewed than the time-tested cryptographic technology of ring signatures. Nevertheless, the technology behind zk-SNARKs is incredible, and it always bothered us that Zcash only provides them as an optional setting, as we explained earlier. Since Zcash does not require the usage of z-addresses and since the vast majority of users do not use them, ZEC ends up being almost as transparent as Bitcoin in practice. For the past several years, Monero (XMR) has distinguished itself as the king of privacy coins by enforcing mandatory privacy for all transactions by default.
