ZenCash Secure Nodes
ZenCash Secure Nodes
ZenCash is a fork of ZClassic which is a also fork of ZCash. Like its origin, ZenCash also has private transaction using zk-SNARKS build on top of bitcoin codebase. ZenCash improves the security and the privacy of the network by introducing secure nodes.
Secure nodes are similar to masternodes that can be found in other coins like Dash. However, their main function is not bringing extra features like instandsend into ZenCash, but to secure the whole network and improve censorship resistance.
Importance of Nodes
Network communication among nodes in most of the blockchain network is unencrypted hence it is easily identified on the internet when a user accessing any blockchain data. Governments or attackers can censor or block the data especially for blocking the whole privacy focused blockchain which renders the privacy features inside the network useless. Moreover, the quality of the nodes are not guaranteed as we do not know what kind of machines are they running on or how frequent they are staying online so these nodes might face DDoS attack harming the whole network.
Private transaction and communication worldwide is protected by the ZenCash secure nodes by encrypting the network connection and communication among the resilient secure nodes with valid security certificate. 3.5% mining reward is distributed to secure nodes operator to incentify people secure the network instead of relying on nodes ran by volunteer like on bitcoin.
Secure nodes have to accept the daily “publish challenge” which nodes prove their hardware and network compatibility by regularly sending the z-transaction within the network. This also improves the privacy of user’s z-transaction as it would be less obvious when it is mixed with all the z-transaction by the secure nodes filled up the network.
Requirement
To run a ZenCash Secure Node, the node operator have to have 42 ZEN (~ 700 USD at current price) deposited and locked into their node transparent t-address just like other masternodes.
The machine that the node is running on should have enough processing power and 2.5+ GB of memory to withstand DDoS attacks and process private transactions. 92%+ uptime is also required to deliver a stable network and smooth user experience.
Development
There are 12,000 secure nodes online globally higher than 9600 full nodes of the bitcoin network, showing strong interest and decentralisation of the ZenCash project. The ZenCash Dev Team has actively announced the plans and updated whitepaper to add Super Nodes which introduces more features like side chains to the ZenCash network by the end of 2018. The secure node reward would be raised from 3.5% to 10% of the mining reward, and the super nodes would receive another 10% of the mining reward that can drive up the demand ZenCash.
References
https://zencash.com/securenodes/
https://blog.zencash.com/secure-nodes-why-are-they-important/
https://steemit.com/news/@bible.com/6h36cq