The success of bitcoin paved the way for many alternative cryptocurrencies to emerge. Zcash is very similar to bitcoin but the major difference lies in the level of privacy.

Launched in 2016 by Zooko Wilcox-O’Hearn, the American computer specialist and CEO of Electric coin Company, Zcash appeared as an upgraded version of bitcoin in terms of privacy. Bitcoin works on the blockchain which runs like an open ledger each and every transaction is trackable which compromises the user's privacy to tackle this problem many cryptocurrencies emerged like Zcash, Monero, Dash, etc. They are also known as Privacy coins which allow users to gain total anonymity while making blockchain transactions.

Zcash innovated by adopting Bitcoin's open ledger system and encrypting information about the ledger's users. This means that even though all ZCash transactions are recorded on a blockchain the transactions are encrypted and can only be viewed by users that have been given access to them.

This feature of Zcash provided by the technology known as       

 Zero-knowledge cryptography. In cryptography, zero-knowledge proofs let you convince someone that you know the information or have done something, without revealing the information lets take an example of normal life that rather than typing the password to the potentially unsafe site you can simply send a proof that you know the password

Zero-knowledge proof can be very easily be used within the context of a blockchain ecosystem, especially in regard to validating cryptocurrency transactions without disclosing any data related to it such as where the transactions originated from, where it went or how much money was transferred. This makes ZCash different from Bitcoin and other blockchains that make public the amount transferred from one user's real payment address to another user's address

And there are also some cons of this technology. ZCash is criticized for potentially providing a secure haven for illegal transactions; however, ZCash is not just used by cybercriminals who engage in illegal transactions in the dark web. As of May 2020, ZEC is ranked 26 on CoinMarketCap's list of ranked cryptocurrencies with a total market capitalization of 417 Million dollars.