ShapeShift Adds Zcash Support As ZEC Markets Go Wild

Switzerland-based ShapeShift.io has announced it will integrate Zcash (ZEC) with its trading platform, following the coin’s launch and subsequent moonshot in price.

Also read: Barry Silbert Reveals 10 Bitcoin Predictions for 2017

On Friday, October 28, the Zcash cryptocurrency was open to the public as a significant portion of miners started mining the anonymous asset.

Zcash came out of the gate costing quite a bit of bitcoin. When it first hit the market, the currency started out at upwards of 3,000 BTC per ZEC. The cryptocurrency has dropped in value but remains roughly 7 BTC per ZEC at press time.

Decentralized Asset Exchange ShapeShift Announces ZEC Support

The cryptocurrency community has gone crazy about Zcash, with spectators watching the market closely. Zcash’s Genesis block was mined on October 28, and coins immediately hit the market.

Seeing the immense popularity, ShapeShift has decided to open its doors to the digital asset. 

ShapeShift details that Zcash is a consumer privacy friendly asset that has “groundbreaking cryptography,” producing anonymous transactions.  

“Zcash finally fulfills an early promise of Bitcoin technology — the ability to transact freely and privately with anyone in the world,” said ShapeShift founder and CEO Erik Voorhees.

“This protects the right to privacy held by all individuals on Earth, and opens up new commercial use cases which were impossible without truly confidential transactions.”

Over Two Years of Development Creates a Highly Anticipated First Day

Zcash developers have released a Linux-based daemon and command-line tool thus far. Additionally, mining has commenced, and many have talked about the difficulty.

However, the community has most feverishly discussed the market, which started off selling Zcash at a very high value, although it has since declined to roughly $5,000 USD in Bitcoin per ZEC.   

The zero-knowledge proof called “zk-SNARKs“ makes up the crucial part of the technology that helps Zcash provide anonymity. With the user’s consent, transactions can be sent completely privately without disclosing receiver and sender data, metadata, and transaction values.

Proponents believe the cryptocurrency could have a vast array of use cases that fully transparent blockchains couldn’t achieve. 

“Zcash is a group of scientists and techies who came up with a way to combine blockchains with data security. These two things are well understood, important, and widely used, but have never been put together before now,” said Zcash CEO Zooko Wilcox.

“The launch of the Zash protocol is the first of its kind. It is the accumulation of years of academic research, hard engineering work, and diligent security work.”

As Additional Exchanges Show Support, What Will the Future Hold for Zcash?

With businesses such as Jaxx, Kraken, Poloniex, and now ShapeShift supporting Zcash, the currency’s ecosystem is already boisterous.

Cryptocurrency enthusiasts have discussed the topic of Zcash in great detail over a wide array of social media platforms. Throughout Twitter, Facebook and other forums, many digital currency advocates are talking about this asset — Especially the cryptocurrency’s extremely volatile market trading.

Where the coin’s valuation will end up over the next few weeks remains unknown. Now, with ShapeShift and several other exchanges supporting it, the cryptocurrency’s liquidity will continue to spread. Many eyes will most definitely continue to watch how Zcash progresses within the markets.

What do you think about ShapeShift adding Zcash to the platform? Let us know in the comments below.

Images via ShapeShift, Shutterstock, and Truth In Media.

Disclaimer: Bitcoin.com owner Roger Ver is invested in Zcash.  

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