Zcash Donates $40K to Canadian Private Messaging Developer

The Zcash Foundation, the firm behind privacy-centric cryptocurrency Zcash, has donated $40,000 to a Canadian private messaging developer.

The Open Privacy Research Society, a non-profit group working on Cwtch, a decentralized metadata-resistant messenger, has received 1,044 ZEC from Zcash, the organization announced on Dec. 3.As described by Open Privacy, Cwtch is a platform for building decentralized infrastructure based on metadata-resistant communication applications.

Open Privacy integrates the platform with anonymous payments based on Zcash's techIn line with the platform's anonymity-focused vision, Open Privacy is also working on providing Cwtch users with anonymous payment options.

The firm has implemented a prototype system relying on Zcash Foundation's native crypto wallet, ZecWallet.

In the announcement, Open Privacy wrote that Zcash is one of few cryptocurrencies that directly provide a way to transmit significant data alongside a payment and wouldn't compromise the metadata resistance goals of Cwtch.

The Zcash-based prototype doesn't allow users to spend tokens as it was only written to demonstrate Zcash integration, Open Privacy noted.

Zcash is a major privacy-focused cryptocurrency projectLaunched in 2016, Zcash is a major cryptocurrency focused on providing users with private transactions, similar to coins like Monero.

As reported, Zcash uses a special iteration of zero-knowledge proofs called Zero-Knowledge Succinct Non-Interactive Argument of Knowledge that allows native transactions to remain fully encrypted while still being verified under the network's consensus rules.

In mid-November, an industry expert argued that Bitcoin must introduce anonymity features like those provided by Zcash or Monero.

At press time, Zcash is ranked the 33rd-largest cryptocurrency, with a market capitalization of $219 million.