ZCash, the Privacy Cryptocurrency Implements Its ‘Sapling’ Network Hard Fork

Privacy cryptocurrency ZCash has recently completed its network upgrade called Sapling that aims to reduce the actual size of transactions while simultaneously improving the transaction speed and getting more security to the network.

The Sapling hard fork was activated on schedule at block number 419,200. ZCash says that the latest upgrade will improve the feasibility of mobile transactions on the network. ZCash says that the Spaling upgrade “introduces significant efficiency improvements for shielded transactions that will pave the way for broad mobile, exchange and vendor adoption of Zcash shielded addresses.”

ZCash currently facilitates two types of addresses. One is the standard transparent “t-type” address which works similar to most other cryptocurrencies. This address shows the sender and receiver information publicly on the network during the time of transaction.

The other is the shielded address type which keeps all information relating to the transactions private and hidden. These addresses give information only regarding the sums transacted.

The ZCash Sapling upgrade has considerably reduced the hardware and the memory requirements to authorize the transactions. Hence this upgrade is very critical from the point of creating a mobile payment network on ZCash.

Another useful feature that the Sapling upgrade brings is that one can access the transaction information without exposing the private key. The Sapling upgrade will be very beneficial to exchange software and mobile application developers for offering ZCash products in an efficient manner.

The ZCash developers are pretty confident that the reduced hardware requirements brought by the Sapling upgrade will trigger increased adoption for the cryptocurrency. Moreover, the developers feel that such continued upgrades will push the feature of “privacy-by-default” in cryptocurrency transactions.

Almost every exchange supporting ZCash (ZEC) will implement this upgrade. As a result, privacy withdrawals will turn much more efficient. ZCash has a lot to do in terms of improving it technology wherein it can successfully perform private transactions with the same efficiency as other public blockchain tokens.