zcash's optional privacy and scaling privacy to the planet a big reason why privacy was quiet until now is that its proponents wanted to appeal to criminals instead of everyday individuals I understand saying you do stuff on the darknet has aura, but if you do this, everyone will think privacy is only for criminals, and privacy will get outlawed this is what is happening now you end up tremendously hurting the cause for the false image of sticking it to the man — you are, in fact, sticking it to no one but your fellow man privacy is about giving every individual the choice, dignity, and freedom in how they present themselves to the world it is ownership over one's identity emphasis on *every individual*, not just a few people on select corners of the internet — planetary scale eric hughes' cypherpunk manifesto mentions this twice "privacy is not secrecy, privacy is the power to selectively reveal oneself to the world." "an anonymous transaction system is not a secret transaction system. an anonymous system empowers individuals to reveal their identity when desired and only when desired; this is the essence of privacy" zcash leaves this decision up to the individual on the wallet level for example, the main wallet on zcash, zashi wallet, shields everything by default and gives several warnings if you are using transparent addresses it is lazy, low-resolution, and objectively false to claim that a system must be more private because criminals use it disproportionately while you're at it, what other engineering/math/life advice do you ask criminals? this is no different than thinking that TRON has better security or speed than all other blockchains because people use it disproportionately in Latin America the reason is not technical; it is a network effect from targeting that niche, nothing else anyone with basic logic can tell you that mixer-based systems (like Monero) are inherently weaker than encryption-based systems (like Zcash) a mixer-based system attempts to distract and obfuscate amongst decoys, while encryption allows for true vanishing while they are both much better than no privacy at all, it is borderline dangerous to claim that mixer-type systems will give the individual the same level of security there is no debate here, this is a fact of mathematics, no different than saying that 2 is greater than 1 — ring signatures are great, but they can not compete with encryption + integrity via ZK a mixer-based system also requires constant motion (including bait ones from people trying to break your privacy) for obfuscation, but true privacy comes from value at rest zcash's shielded pool has now surpassed billions of dollars and is the largest such pool in all of crypto, one can use it as their private Swiss vault on the internet and move funds only when necessary — that is a colossal anonymity set that gives privacy for the masses and that part is the most important: "the masses" zcash's two-mode system is an incredible Trojan horse for scaling privacy to planetary scale while continuing the mission of the cypherpunks, that privacy is about ownership and agency of one's identity it is time for privacy in crypto to stop being a fringe edge case only reserved for criminals and to start being a fundamental right for every individual on the internet