Zcash is the first crypto currency in the world to use Zero Knowledge Proof (ZKP) through zk SNARKS and provide enhanced privacy to its users. It doesn’t make every transaction detail public, which is the case with most of other cryptocurrencies.

Zcash is based on Bitcoin’s codebase. In 2013, Matthew Green, Ian Miers and Christina Garman from Johns Hopkins University came up with Zerocoin, a proposed privacy extension to Bitcoin. Alessandro Chiesa, Eli Ben Sasson, Eram Tromer & Madars Virza joined the founding team later.

The Zero Coin Electronic Company was formed in 2015 to work on and deliver proposed privacy extensions. Zcash Foundation was launched in 2017. ZCash shares many similarities with Bitcoin such as a fixed total supply of 21 million units.