The Road to Zcash: A Survey of Zero-Knowledge Technology

Abstract

Zcash is the first widespread application of zero-knowledge succinct non-interactive arguments of knowledge, or zk-SNARKs for short. While research on zero-knowledge proofs began in the 1980s, we noticed a lack of accessible literature to help catch up in a rapidly-expanding field. This work aims to fill in that gap by introducing zero-knowledge and ultimately reviewing the Zcash protocol. We discuss the security and anonymity benefits of Zcash as well as its shortcomings in practice.