Frequently Asked Questions
What is Zcash?
Zcash is digital money, to learn more visit https://z.cash/.
What is a Zcash wallet?
A wallet is an app that allows you to hold, send and receive Zcash. For a list of available wallets, visit this page.
What is a viewing key?
Zcash shielded transactions are encrypted and only the owner of the wallet can see their details. In some cases, you may want to let someone see the details of the transactions on your wallet and Zcash has functionality for this: the viewing key.
By providing a viewing key to someone, you are giving them the ability to see the details of the transactions in that address, such as the amounts and the memos received. However, a viewing key does not allow them to spend any ZEC from that address.
What is a Unified Address?
The network upgrade that was activated on June 2022 introduced several technologic advances to the Zcash blockchain. One is the new Orchard shielded pool, a cryptographic advance that eliminated the need for the trusted setup for shielded transactions. Another advance is the concept of Unified Addresses, addresses that support transparent, Sapling and Orchard transactions with the same address, significantly simplifying the user experience.
Unified Addresses start with a u1....
Before Unified Addresses were available, Zcash used the Sapling shielded pool and those addresses are still available and supported by many wallets in the ecosystem. Sapling addresses start with zs....
Zcash also supports transparent transactions, these addresses start with t... and provide no privacy. However, the simpler transparent protocol has been implemented by a number of exchanges and wallets to support the Zcash blockchain.
What is a Full Node?
Decentralized blockchains rely on computers around the world running software that implements the blockchain’s protocol for creating and validating transactions, as well as creating and validating new blocks. These interconnected computers are often referred as the “nodes” of the network.
The resources needed for a node exceed what some devices, especially mobile phones, can provide. In order to provide access to the blockchain from these devices, we use apps referred to as light clients. These apps delegate a lot of the blockchain interaction to a third-party server that does run a Zcash node and then relays data to the light client. This approach, while allowing access to the Zcash blockchain for mobile devices, places trust on the third-party server when processing this information and also makes that server a single point of failure.
By running a node yourself, you have direct control of your access to the Zcash blockchain and also strengthen the network by participating.