Zcash Crypto Rating

Unlike most cryptocurrency ratings published online, the Wise Crypto ratings have nothing to do with the current or future price of the currency. Whether or not a crypto is over or undervalued or priced today is completely irrelevant. Our research focuses on the sustainability of each project, the security, the use case, decentralisation, environmental impact, the technology, the scalability and the developers and teams behind the projects.

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Zcash (ZEC) Rating = 165/1000

Technology (0 to 300) = 95

• Speed (0 to 50) = 10

Zcash has a block time of around two and a half minutes or one fifty seconds. The network can process 26 transactions per second. This makes it four times faster than Bitcoin but much slower compared to other cryptocurrencies such as XRP. The speed of transactions on the Zcash network is also dependent on network traffic. Transaction speed slows down when many people conduct transactions at the same time.

• Cost (0 to 50) = 30

The Zcash transaction fee is incredibly low. The network charges only 0.0001 ZEC, which is less than one USD. Zcash low transaction fees, as well as average speeds, making it an ideal privacy coin.

• Scalability (0 to 50) = 5

Zcash suffers from immense scalability issues. The network is closely based on the Bitcoin codebase and therefore suffers from Bitcoin’s scalability issues. Zcash scalability issues are even worse than Bitcoin since private transactions consume a lot more space in blocks than Bitcoin. Zcash users, therefore, have to put up with network overload and loss of connectivity, which affects the usability of the network.

• Reliability (0 to 50) = 40

Despite the scalability issues, Zcash is a reliable, pseudo decentralized, anonymous-transactions privacy coin that allows users to transact anonymously. The network leverages advanced cryptography, zk-SNARKS, or Zero-knowledge proofs to shield transactions and allow for private transactions.

• Environmental Impact (0 to 50) = 0

Like Bitcoin, Zcash can also be mined with the supply capped at 21 million ZEC coins. Mining of ZEC coins consumes some amount of electricity, which negatively impacts the environment. The more it gets used, the more of a disaster it becomes.

• Decentralization (0 to 50) = 10

While Zcash claims to be fully decentralized, there have been rising concerns of ecentralization. The Zcash foundation allegedly claimed 10% of mined ZEC in the first four years, jeopardizing the future of the project.

Security (-250 to 0) = -195

• Reorg, 51% & Brute Force Attack / Fake ZecWallet (-100 to 0) = -75

The Zcash Community discovered a suspicious and potentially malicious counterfeit version of Zcash Foundation’s native ZecWallet. Creators of the wallet were inviting Zcash users to upgrade their wallets to the latest version that contains several improvements. The fake wallet contained malware that could steal ZEC users’ wallets. This is a serious security threat that puts users at risk of losing their coins.
Other seriously catastrophic flaws in the Zcash code have been found and patched by the Zcash developers.

• Potential for Being Banned (-100 to 0) = -90

Zcash being a privacy coin, has a huge potential of being banned. Several countries, including South Korea and Japan, have already banned the use of private coins (Zcash included) with claims that they are being used to fuel crime, notably money laundering. Zcash has also been delisted from Coinbase, indicating a real threat of being banned.

• Network Vulnerabilities (-50 to 0 )= -30

The major network vulnerability experienced by the Zcash network is the critical counterfeit vulnerability that could have allowed an attacker mint an infinite amount of counterfeit Zcash. The vulnerability affects the zero-knowledge proof responsible for the private feature of Zcash. Nonetheless, the vulnerability has since been fixed.

Use Case (0 to 500) = 215

• Initial Main Use Case (0 to 100) = 10

Zcash was created with a mission to create an open, global economic platform from which no one can be excluded. Zcash advanced algorithm makes trades between persons anonymous by concealing the identity and private keys of users.

• Mainnet Live (0 to 200) = 200

Zcash Mainnet was launched in 2016 by Zooko Wilcox, a software developer. Zooko performed a fork of the original Bitcoin code and made some adjustments to include anonymity and make the project quite fast (relatively speaking).

• Additional Use Case (0 to 100) = 0

ZEC coin can be used to buy goods and services anonymously. Additionally, ZEC can be exchanged with other cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, which can be used as a means of payment. This “use case” falls under the initial main use case and no other notable use cases exist.

Crypto casinos are a valid, legitimate and active use case: there are currently no Zcash casinos or ZEC casinos.

• Additional Working Products (0 to 100) = 5

Zcash Foundation has a number of working products, including ZecWallet-a cross-platform, open-source, GUI wallet that incorporates a full Zcash node, and prioritizes shielded transactions. Zepio- another cross-platform, open-source, GUI wallet that focuses on #z2z usage. Zebra is a consensus protocol that is compatible with Zcash node and written in the Rust programming language. These products should however be standard for any project.

Core Team, Developers & Partnerships (0 to 200) = 50

• Core Team & Developers (0 to 100) = 30

Unlike other private coins such as Monero, the team at Zcash is much more transparent. Zooko Wilcox is the CEO and founder of the project. Zooko has more than 20 years’ experience in data security and cryptography. Zooko is joined by Alessandro Chiesa, who is the co-founder. Chiesa has extensive experience in zero-knowledge proofs and is a lead author at Libsnark, the library of zk-SNARKs proofs language. Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin is also the advisor to the Zcash project.

• Notable Partnerships (0 to 100) = 20

Zerocoin Electric Coin Company (the owners of the Zcash Foundation) have made extensive strides regarding partnerships. JP Morgan has partnered with ZECC to develop and incorporate its privacy zk-SNARKs layer into its own blockchain project. But this is not a partnership for Zcash itself.

The Zcash foundation has ‘partnered’ Grayscale Investments to increase its usability through their Zcash Investment Trust.  Ethereum is collaborating with Zcash to integrate its privacy technology into the Ethereum network.

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