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Zcash Is The ‘Better Bitcoin’ Satoshi Couldn’t Build, Says Helius Labs CEO

Zcash’s sudden resurgence isn’t just one other rotation, argues Helius CEO Mert Mumtaz; it’s a re-centering of crypto on first rules of cryptography and consumer alternative. In a wide-ranging dialog on Messari’s “Fully Diluted” (Oct. 23) with host Dylan Bane and Messari researchers, Mumtaz framed Zcash as “secret Bitcoin”—a full-stack, zero-leakage design for cash that Bitcoin’s earliest architects needed however couldn’t ship with 2010-era tooling.

Zcash Proves Satoshi Right

“The easiest conceptual option to perceive that is that it’s a secret Bitcoin. It’s an encrypted Bitcoin,” Mumtaz stated, invoking early discussion board posts from Satoshi and Hal Finney. “You have discussion board posts of Satoshi and Hal [Finney] saying issues like, ‘If we knew learn how to add ZK proofs to Bitcoin, it will make it a greater Bitcoin.’ But that is 2010 they usually didn’t have the tech. And since then, the tech has been made.” In his telling, that lineage issues: Zcash inherits Bitcoin’s financial template whereas changing probabilistic obfuscation with “pure encryption.”

Mumtaz’s critique of “bolt-on” privateness was unambiguous. Privacy, he argued, just isn’t a characteristic toggle; it’s a system property that should be designed from the bottom as much as decrease data leakage throughout the whole stack—wallets, RPCs, mempools, validators, bridges, and software UX. “Privacy just isn’t, for my part, one thing that may be bolted on,” he stated.

“You have to start out from first rules and method the issue from a vertically built-in full-stack answer.” He contrasted Zcash’s shielded pool with approaches like Monero and mixers that depend on decoys: “With Monero… you’re introducing probabilistic decoys… it’s that cups-and-ball recreation… with Zcash there isn’t any obfuscation, it’s a pure encryption—if the ball simply didn’t exist in any respect.”

The fast catalyst behind Zcash’s rally, Mumtaz instructed, was much less a single headline than a confluence: product-level UX enhancements, a shifting coverage backdrop, and a focus—each supportive and hostile—compounding on social media. He pointed to the brand new Zashi pockets as a turning level: “People are literally in a position to make use of this new Zashi pockets to have some enjoyable… sending one another non-public messages and shielding stuff and tipping one another.”

He additionally argued the market had “over-indexed on extraordinarily bizarre cash” whereas neglecting “privateness beliefs,” leaving Zcash’s market cap “pathetically low” relative to its potential in the mean time he started highlighting it.

Regulation loomed over privateness the previous couple of years. Mumtaz was blunt in regards to the chilling impact of enforcement on privateness R&D: “People had been terrified of going to jail for even launching tokens, not to mention writing privateness code. And there’s individuals nonetheless in jail for this.” He sees components of the US moving in a friendlier direction beneath US President Donald Trump, whereas components of Europe transfer towards surveillance and scanning of personal messages.

That divergence makes long-range forecasting tough, he cautioned, nevertheless it reinforces why the business ought to “guard zealously individuals’s proper to privateness” as crypto’s authorized standing improves elsewhere. “There’s individuals in jail for writing privateness code, however not for launching scams. That looks like a reasonably large downside that we have to appropriate.”

Bitcoin, Solana And ZEC

On the perennial query—why not add sturdy privateness to Bitcoin immediately?—Mumtaz cited each governance inertia and technical realities. Bitcoin core adjustments are onerous by design, he stated, and privateness calls for greater than a script-level patch. “Unless you might be designing with leaks minimized from the underside up, the leaks type of add up… It simply takes one leak to compromise that privateness.”

Zcash’s roadmap featured prominently. Mumtaz expects the Tachyon work spearheaded by Sean Bowe to handle “state development” and lay “foundations for scaling,” cleansing up legacy design decisions that waste compute, similar to brute-decoding notes. He known as for pragmatic charge markets to mitigate spam and for bettering mining decentralization as worth motion attracts new hashrate.

But he rejected, in its present kind, the “Crosslink” hybrid PoW/PoS finality proposal: “It’s a nasty concept… With a privateness system particularly, the extra transferring items you introduce, the extra assault floor will increase… It’s unclear to me what precisely you’re gaining from this aside from type of a brand new finality time.” If given a token-holder vote, he stated he would vote towards it until considerably revised.

Mumtaz repeatedly returned to an “atomic unit” framing of privateness: data leakage. He prolonged that lens to bridges and cross-ecosystem liquidity. Helius helped bridge ZEC publicity into Solana through NEAR, however he pressured customers quit Zcash’s privateness after they maintain it on Solana. “Once that asset is on Solana, you don’t have the privateness advantages… You can bridge it again and deposit within the shielded pool… you then get the privateness again, however when you’re on Solana you’re not going to have the identical privateness because the non-public blockchain.” The utility, for now, is market entry and DeFi composability relatively than end-to-end confidentiality.

The market meta, he conceded, is cyclical as a result of consideration is finite. The goal is to ratchet the ground greater every cycle by changing narrative into sturdy engineering and wise laws. “It’s on the builders… to make use of that momentum… to truly drive ahead wise laws and harden the engineering of those techniques such that they endure in scale and are usable for many individuals.”

Asked to handicap the 2030 leaderboard, he demurred on exact ordering however volunteered a long-horizon view wherein Zcash belongs within the dialog alongside Bitcoin and Solana: “If you had been to inform me 20 years then I’m going to say Bitcoin, Solana, ZEC.”

At press time, ZEC traded at $267.

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