Researchers from the University College London have noted patterns in the various forms of Zcash transactions which they jointly agreed ended up weakening their anonymity. This information came out in a paper that was published on Monday.
The degradation of anonymity
The study outlines that there is the aspect of degradation in anonymity whenever the users switch between addresses. The team agrees that most of the Zcash transactions can be kept private. However, they recognize that in some instances a given Zcash user might choose particular usage patterns. It says that in such an instance there might be the need to diminish privacy.
‘An Empirical Analysis of Anonymity in Zcash’ is the name of the paper that was published by George Kappos, Mary Maller, Sarah Meiklejohn and Haaroon Yousaf from University College London.
Associated challenges
A person well conversant with the matter but who wanted his identity kept anonymous admitted that it was possible to use Zcash privately. He also highlighted the possibility of shrinking its anonymity set in a considerable way by coming up with simple heuristic with a basis on the identifiable patterns of usage.
The founder of Zcash has given his response referring to the paper as an insightful one. He called upon all the users to embrace the habit of strong Zcash in a shielded address.
But why is it that a coin such as Zcash is always associated with a smaller market cap? One market observer has revealed that it is because a large number of people still remain doubtful on whether or not the various regulators will reach that point where they would get more comfortable with that sort of technology.
Basically, coins such as Monero and Zcash employ several methods whenever it gets to staging anonymity in the transactions. It is worth noting that there are a number of coins that have time and again proven attractive to extortionists and hackers.
Varying addresses usually present complications whenever transactions are get conducted in between. However, the good part is that it becomes possible to glean important information regarding the z-addresses involved.
