[Cryptography] Bitcoin theft and the future of cryptocurrencies

[grarpamp]

On Thu, Dec 28, 2017 at 1:14 PM, Howard Chu <hyc at symas.com> wrote:
> why are only 1% of Zcash txs actually fully shielded?

A major factor not accounted for is speculation by investors, their
needs often having little to no use case for privacy or anything else,
are pushing large volumes of unshielded tx% through exchanges.
Their fraction applies to all coins and needs considered in any
analysis as to why a coins tx metrics may look a certain way.

Investors may or may not be affected by say,
Monero's huge tx sizes before / after any future plans,
Zcash z-tx computation requirements before / after Sapling.
Even BTC's ridiculous tx fees are offset by style of holding
or large positions till whatever BTC changes.

> Privacy is the *flagship feature* of Zcash.

Privacy is becoming a hot feature and research area of cryptocurrency
in general. Look forward to continual advancement and turnover in the space.
There will *never*  be one coin to rule them all.

> Theoretical perfection is meaningless if the implementation is too slow for
> practical use.

For those whose use case / threat model demands z-z, or any other privacy
coin or method, "slow" and whatever are but secondary considerations.