Zcash extends rally into Asian trading day

Zcash, one of the first privacy-focused cryptocurrencies, saw its ZEC token post gains in Asian trading as the protocol’s shift toward proof-of-stake and compliance directives won more support from market participants.

• Zcash cleared the $100 mark, rising as much as 6% over 24 hours and 12% so far this week, according to CoinGecko. The protocol is one of the original privacy tokens, first launching in October 2016 as a fork of Bitcoin.

• In November, Electric Coin Company, the team behind the project, announced that it was transitioning to Proof of Stake by 2023 and planned to release an official wallet.

• The market also reacted favorably to ZCash’s compliance plan. The team said the protocol is fully compatible with global anti-money laundering and counter-terror financing standards as well as Financial Action Task Force recommendations like the Travel Rule, which requires them to keep customer data with any transaction. In a blog post, the team notes that the majority of transactions occur on FinCEN-registered exchanges in the United States.

• Privacy protocols and mixers have been in the news, as recently over $30 million in digital assets was stolen from Crypto.com and mixed through Tornado Cash.

• In an interview with CoinDesk, Tornado Cash’s co-founder Roman Semenov said that law enforcement tends to focus on obtaining IP addresses from infrastructure providers as these can be tied back to a name via subpoenas instead of privacy tokens.

• The RAND Corporation noted in a 2020 report that there is no evidence of widespread illicit use of Zcash, as crooks prefer to use bitcoin instead.