ZCash is going through a difficult period and there are key decisions to be made about the future of the cryptocurrency. One is the move from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake, the second involves a battle for the ZCash trademark. Furthermore, the Electric Coin Company, the company that owns the ZCash brand, has recently published a report highlighting major economic hurdles.
Zcash, the community doesn’t like the Proof of Stake
Zcash (ZEC) is an altcoin that has made its way through the countless cryptocurrencies on the market thanks to two main features: security and anonymity, which are features now shared with its main rival Monero (XMR).
A few days ago a member of the community, rebekah31, proposed a ZIP (ZCash Improvement Proposal), which provides for the transition from the Proof of Work to the Proof of Stake model.
Zcash Improvement Proposal to switch Zcash to proof-of-stake: https://t.co/gptcDA9PO0
— zooko (@zooko) September 1, 2019
The proposal was tweeted by Zooko Wilcox, CEO of the Electric Coin Company, via his official Twitter account.
A number of users commented negatively as they felt that the Proof of Stake is not the right choice for the future of Zcash, especially for the complexity of the transition from PoW.
1. Would ECC and ZF run Validators with their relatively large allotment of tokens?
2. What degree of token distribution do you think is needed to create a smoothly operating PoS network?
3. Has anyone figured out a method to use Zaddrs for Validators?
4. Would issuance decrease?— 🔥🐍💪🐍😎🐍🤙🐍🔥 (@fubuloubu) September 1, 2019
However, one of the great advantages of PoS is its potential for energy savings. The PoS is clearly less burdensome on the environment than the Proof of Work.
Mining a cryptocurrency consumes a lot of energy. How much? According to a very recent study by the University of Cambridge, the worldwide Bitcoin network alone absorbs more energy than the whole of Switzerland.
It is worth mentioning that systems based on Proof of Stake have yet to establish themselves and demonstrate their safety and reliability. For this reason, there are many concerns on the part of users. Ethereum developers have been working for a long time on this transition that should be ready by 2020. Wilcox himself said he was impressed by the progress made by the Ethereum developers with Casper.
Zcash, problems with the trademark
At the same time, there is a legal battle for the use of the trademark. The Electric Coin Company (ECC) has, in fact, discontinued negotiations for brand sharing with the ZCash Foundation (Zfnd)
The ECC, as confirmed by Wilcox in an official note, is currently the only trademark holder that has been registered in several countries.
Discussions concerned the introduction of a double veto on the use of the trademark by ECC and Zfnd, but no agreement was reached and negotiations were suspended, so to date, ECC remains the sole owner.
The Electric Scam Company decides not to hand the ZCash trademark over to the ZCash Floundation, which means that if they aren’t given a new Founders Reward they can just decide to fork ZCash and prevent the original chain from calling itself ZCash. Hashtag decentralised. https://t.co/BLPsJhBRLv
— Riccardo Spagni (@fluffypony) September 3, 2019
The ZCash Foundation did not hide its disappointment and said it was surprised and dismayed by this decision. They then announced that the NU4 upgrade would be postponed until an agreement was reached.
