This episode of Bankless features Zcash co-founder Sean Bowe and ZK researcher Dev Ojha discussing the complete Zcash roadmap. They cover scaling through the Tachyon upgrade, post-quantum security, privacy maximalism, and the importance of privacy in an era of AI-driven surveillance.
Summarized by Podsumo
Tachyon is a major upgrade that uses recursive SNARKs to scale Zcash by reducing proof size and eliminating state bloat, enabling high TPS.
Zcash has achieved quantum recoverability, meaning funds in shielded pools can be recovered even if quantum computers emerge.
Privacy is urgent because AI now allows anyone to track blockchain transactions, making transparent ledgers dangerous for all users.
Zcash plans to scale to 50,000 TPS via layered improvements: Tachyon, private information retrieval for wallets, and enhanced proof-of-work with faster block times.
The project values 'ledger indistinguishability'—transactions must look like random data to avoid attacks like set intersection.
"When you use a transparent ledger now, you should be actually really nervous. Everyone using crypto is trackable with AI, even if you're not a criminal. — Sean Bowe"
"There's a difference between something being 99.9% private and 100% private. We don't want to bend the knee on privacy. It would compromise our values. — Sean Bowe"
"Privacy gives you a lot. You cannot fish someone's wallet without a viewing key. I don't know who the whales are because it's private. — Dev Ojha"