Zcash

Zcash is a privacy-focused cryptocurrency launched on 28 October 2016 that allows people to send and receive payments without exposing transaction amounts, wallet balances, or participant identities to the public. It addresses the transparency problem common to most blockchains, where every detail of every transaction is visible to anyone, a concern for individuals and organizations that want financial confidentiality in everyday payments, savings, or cross-border transfers. The intended audience is anyone who values transactional privacy as a feature rather than an afterthought.

Zcash operates on its own Layer 1 blockchain using Proof-of-Work consensus with the Equihash algorithm, producing a block roughly every 75.99 seconds based on the 24-hour average, with 1,137 blocks confirmed in the most recent 24-hour period. Privacy is enforced through zero-knowledge proofs — specifically the Halo construction used in its Orchard shielded pool — which allow the network to confirm that a transaction is valid without learning the sender, receiver, or amount. ZEC is the native token used to pay transaction fees and to compensate miners who secure the network.

Fees on Zcash are paid by users who submit transactions and collected by miners as compensation for processing and securing blocks. Over the trailing 30 days the network collected 135,263 USD in fees, and over the trailing 12 months it collected 711,429 USD; annualized from the trailing 30-day figure, fees run at approximately 1,645,699.83 USD per year. The 24-hour median transaction fee is recorded at 0.0 USD, though the 24-hour average fee is 391.57 USD, a divergence that reflects a small number of higher-value transactions pulling the average up while most transactions pay near nothing. The protocol itself collects no revenue distinct from miner fees — the revenue figures for the past 24 hours, 30 days, and 12 months are each recorded at 0.0 USD — meaning fee-based valuation ratios on this site reflect miner income rather than any protocol treasury or equity-like claim.