Is it just me or are more and more stories which look like fluff pieces for ZCash coming up on the HN frontpage? If they were a startup, I'd guess they were prepping for an IPO/acquisition. Most of them have titles with rhetorical questions, and come across as marketing pieces more than anything else.<p>Really weird.
The unfortunate thing to me about Zcash is that privacy is opt-in. It would be like if Signal was default no privacy, but then you could enable it per message if you wanted to send something secret. Governments could just ban you from turning the privacy on and we've already seen this happen with TOR. Opting into privacy "raises suspicion", and we need services where privacy is enabled by default. Monero does this.
I think the fact that there is no Satoshi means that 1. his/her/their vision is up for grabs and 2. whoever did create Bitcoin didn't want people continuously asking him/her/them what their vision for this is. It hasn't even been 10 years, why are we already arguing over catechism?
My guess is that Satoshi's vision wasn't that Bitcoin would start a frenzy of "blockchain technology" endeavors that feature the movement of capital to promoters and investors, and between speculators.
No. Absolutely no. Satoshi didn't envision a corporation pulling strings behind the scenes just in case some bad guys might use it some day down the line.
Someone explain this part to me:<p>> I would be happy if Zcash and Bitcoin could serve as a gateway from an unstable currency (Venezuelan Bolivar) to a stable currency (EURO/USD)<p>How would this actually happen? Who is on the other side of this transaction? Who would want to cash out their Bitcoin in Venezuelan bolivar?<p>I assume the Bitcoin trades that actually occur in Venezuela are for USD and black-market goods, not for bolivar.
Zcash takes one of the only novel parts of Bitcoin, not requiring trust in a central authority, and pitches it into the garbage.<p>The garbage is likely where Zcash belongs.