Zero knowledge proofs (ZKPs) will revolutionize how we think about privacy and scaling computation. And they’re just starting to take off.

Zooko expressed: “When I onboard people onto Zcash, I see “lightbulb moments” where they are surprised and excited by what they just experienced. One of those moments is sometimes the fact that Zcash comes with integrated end-to-end-encrypted messaging.

A lightbulb moment that a lot of people have when they try Zcash is the realization that you can acquire ZEC on a centralized, KYC exchange like Coinbase, Kraken, Binance, or Gemini and you still instantly get the strongest possible cryptographically-protected on-chain privacy.

This one is very surprising to a lot of people who haven’t tried it. Try it! Get a wallet at Z-cash Wallets), withdraw ZEC from a centralized KYC exchange like Coinbase, look at your own coins on a block explorer and see that they’ve vanished from the internet!

You can leap lightyears ahead of all those opinion-expressers with this one simple trick: 1. Download and install a Zcash wallet (estimated time: 180 seconds) 2. Post your Zcash address on twitter (estimated time: 30 seconds)

Ask nicely for a friendly anonymous Zcasher from somewhere in the world to send you 0.001 ZEC to get you started (estimated time: I dunno… a few minutes? an hour? There are Zcashers in every time zone!)

Read the Shielded Love Note to you that comes with the transaction. Every shielded Zcash transaction comes with an end-to-end-encrypted memo, stored encrypted in the blockchain—visible on your device, on the sender’s device and nowhere else! (Est. time: 30 seconds)

View your transaction on a block explorer.  Where block explorers normally show the sender’s and receiver’s address, you’ll see your address never appears on the blockchain! (Est. time: 60 seconds)

Okay, that’s it! Now at the cost of only a few minutes of your time, you have gained a more accurate understanding of Zcash than 90% of the people who write about it on the Internet.

When you hear somebody say “Zcash isn’t private by default, so it doesn’t offer *real* privacy.”, you can say to yourself “Huh, that’s interesting. Nothing about my transactions showed up on the block explorer.”. And so forth. Thanks for playing! Tag me with your address.

Money is power, science is technology, times are changing and financial history is being remade.