Zcash was born from a cryptographic ritual so secret

that Edward Snowden took part in it anonymously
and if even a single person had lied during the ceremony, the entire supply could have been infinite without anyone noticing
2013: Bitcoin scientists from Johns Hopkins create Zerocoin
a protocol designed to completely erase transaction records
the idea is simple
burn coins → recreate them anonymously
Bitcoin developers dismiss it
too risky, too experimental. Weeks later, Zerocash appears and introduces zk-SNARKs
a form of cryptography that hides
who sends
who receives
the amount
the balances
Downside: the system needs a “trusted setup”
a secret master key is created at launch; if someone keeps a copy, they can create Zcash endlessly forever
2015: the project fully abandons Bitcoin
Zooko Wilcox puts out an independent chain
October 2016: Zcash goes live
identical 21M supply to Bitcoin, although with optional hidden transactions
the ceremony:
six selected individuals
partially masked identities
hardware kept away from the internet
participants generate fragments of the cryptographic key
then they annihilate them permanently
a participant supposedly uses
Faraday cages
network-isolated machines
random hop paths
physical destruction of hardware in the desert
the fragments are called
“toxic waste”
because even if one person manages to survive, the entire system could be compromised forever
for years, the sixth participant remains unidentified
under the alias “John Dobbertin”
2022: the identity is finally revealed
Edward Snowden
states that he joined because Bitcoin’s transparency was a “colossal flaw”
He literally received no compensation at all; he participated only out of privacy ideology
2018: the Sapling upgrade makes private transactions compact enough for portable devices
Zcash weathers multiple bear markets while most privacy coins disappear or are removed from exchanges
2026: former Zcash executives launch Zodl
a novel company backed by Paradigm, Coinbase Ventures, and a16z, with 25 million
and today Zcash is trading in the billions