JPMorgan Integrates ZCash Privacy Into Its Private Quorum Blockchain - And Why This Matters (A Lot)
As you may already know, JPMorgan partnered with ZCash earlier this year, in a move which drove the ZEC price insanely high. Recently, the company announced that it integrated ZCash zk-snarks technology into its private, Ethereum-based blockchain, called Quorum.
Why is this important?
Well, apart from proving once again that fiat economy can benefit a lot from the blockchain technology, as we recently saw with IBM and Stellar Lumens, for instance, this actual milestone is even more exciting.
The privacy technology integrated by JPMorgan obfuscates a transaction in such a way that nothing - and I mean nothing - can be revealed about it, not even the public keys of the actors. But, and here is where it gets interesting, if one of the actors handles the public key to a third party authority, that authority can look at the transaction and even audit it for, let's say regulatory purposes. And the actors will go through this process without revealing their private key.
So an asset created on this blockchain can remain private, while only relevant authorities can audit, if need will be.
Why is this huge?
Because some of the institutions regulating the market may disappear, if the audit can be done directly, between the asset holder and a higher instance.
Less regulation is good. And as long as traditional institutions can coexist amicably with newer technology - which I think will happen, eventually, I don't see a world in which there will be only crypto - I think everybody is happy.
Or at least that's the way it should be.
I'm a serial entrepreneur, blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at Dragos Roua where I write about productivity, business, relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me @dragosroua.
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@dragosroua I've seen Vitalik advertising zk snarks as something fiat economy is ready to adopt . Fascinating bit of news from you.
I am really curious if you found through your research the reason why JP Morgan chose to work with the team from Zcash and not with any other (Ethereum, Ethereum Classic or even Input-Output [ADA]) ?
Their blockchain (Quorum) is Ethereum-based, I think they wanted this specific piece of technology - zk-snarks - straight from its creators, not intermediaries.
Less regulation means more money you get to keep in your own pockets.
The thing is, if you've had a look at the Panama Papers, that since the asset on the blockchain isn't discoverable before the public key is released to the auditing agency, the banksters are going to hide assets.
Which means tax burdens will fall on those least able to bear them, as they are now. Google pays about 1/10 the tax rate as the average person. Big corporations can afford to take advantage of off shoring and regulatory shopping. Better tools to conceal their assets will enable them to pay even less tax, and we unsophisticated commoners will be bearing even more the untenable tax burden.
Presently, the $20T US national debt, when apportioned to every single American equally, comes to more than $50M/person. However, the rich aren't gonna pay their share, and the poor can't. I sure as hell can't pay $50M to bondholders!
It'd be nice if the little guy could preserve his assets from plunder as well as the big bullies. Mebbe Zcash can make that happen.
Well at least this shows that the folks at JPMorgan believe in the blockchain technology even if they don't publicly support Bitcoin
That's exactly why they "don't believe" in it, it's all politics.
It's interesting that they are integrating the technology, but are they using the zcash public chain or is it totally a private blockchain network they are using?
I am sceptical as to the benefits to companies of using private blockchains.
It's their own Ethereum-based blockchain, called Quorum.
So it will boost even more the Zcash price very soon.
most likely
Well put and I completely agree as a long time cryptocurrency entrepreneur.
You see or don't see "a world in which there will be only crypto ", it's not very clear. And are you saying auditors will have less to work? :)
I see a mixed world of fiat and crypto. Yes, there will be less regulatory organizations, since the process of auditing can be streamlined.
It's great that Zcash is sharing their technology with all these other crypto's... but I don't understand why they do this? Doesn't it make ZCash obsolete, if their unique selling point is a feature of many other coins? Why bother with ZCash anymore then?
Good point. It may be the case that the entire ZCash blockchain could be just a huge showcase for a technology they will sell privately, eventually.
Which obviously wouldn't be a good news for ZEC holders...
interesting article. love that you knew about this. is there a source article about JPMorgan partnering with Zcash?
https://www.coindesk.com/jpmorgan-partners-zcash-team-add-enterprise-security/