zk-SNARK

Privacy has long been a central aim and feature of cryptocurrencies. However, what might have been considered private earlier in the history of the industry is often no longer seen to be the case. For example, claims that bitcoin is anonymous are now often refuted, as blockchains are transparent and open: Even though an individual bitcoin address is not linked to a single person in the network, all of the transactions taking place in the bitcoin world can be tracked and mapped. Blockchain analysis of this type has been a central feature of government and law enforcement efforts to crack down on various cryptocurrency-related crimes and similar issues, according to Blockonomi. Because of the perceived lack of privacy of some of the original cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin, there has in recent years been a new wave of privacy-focused tokens and coins. One of these, zcash, is backed by a technology known as zk-SNARKs.