what is zcash zec 
zcash emerged in 2016 when a group of scientists decided they wanted to create a cryptocurrency similar to bitcoin but with some additional features they developed a fork of the bitcoin blockchain with enhanced user security and anonymity the scientists first invented zerocoin which became zerocash not too long after its initial release eventually the cryptocurrency was renamed zcash 1history of zcash zec zcash is forked from the original bitcoin codebase in 2014 eli ben sasson alessandro chiesa christina garman matthew green ian miers eran tromer and madars virza believed there were security flaws in the way transactions were tracked through bitcoin s blockchain in their whitepaper outlining their ideas they called their cryptocurrency zerocash 2the scientists created zerocoin electric coin company in 2015 in 2016 the name changed to zcash by the electric coin company 1zcash uses the zk snark security protocol to ensure the parties involved in a transaction are verified without revealing any information to each other or the network 1zcash is an altcoin a category of cryptocurrency labeled by the crypto community to refer to any cryptocurrency that is not bitcoin many altcoins are different in their purpose and intended uses zk snark allows for fully shielded transactions in which the sender recipient and amount are encrypted this feature is a large deviation from other cryptocurrencies where transaction transparency is an underlying concept aside from securing user information in 2019 electric coin company ecc passed the trademark and license for zcash to the zcash foundation in a bilateral usage agreement in april 2024 ecc announced its intent to terminate the agreement and pass all governance decisions to the foundation effectively removing itself from the project 3