Hi investors, Dean (@deanliu) and Dan (@tradealert) are back and today we're talking about an intriguing privacy platform called ZenCash.

In a Nutshell.

ZenCash is, in its current form, a permission-less platform for privately sending money and messages.

You can think of it as a mix between Zcash (privacy coin) and Telegram (encrypted messaging).

The ZenCash team is also working on two additional applications:

ZenPUB: which will allow users to privately publish content on the network;

ZenHIDE: which will allow domain fronting.

The platform is secured by a network of aptly named Secure Nodes (7027 of which are in operation at the time of writing) which communicate through end-to-end encrypted channels making the network extremely privacy-respecting and resilient.

The ZenCash network is actually the largest privacy network in operation in the whole cryptosphere.

Finally, ZenCash is powered by the ZenCash token which is a fork of Zclassic, making it a distant relative to both Zcash and Bitcoin.

So why exactly should you care about ZenCash?

I- Passive Income.

As we mentioned before, the Zencash network is secured by nodes called SecureNodes (SN). SN are simply computers that run a ZenCash wallet (called a Swing Wallet) and make decisions on the ZenCash network such as locking transactions or (in the future) participating in the governance of the platform.

A SN can be set up by staking 42 ZenCash coins as collateral into a Swing Wallet which is available on the project's website. At current price a SN will cost you around $1400.

Secure nodes don't have as high a ROI as most other MN coins as they only get rewarded 3.5% of the total mining reward divided between the total number of secure nodes. However as the project will gain in traction (and gain in price) it might soon become very expensive to own a full SN so $1400 might not actually be that big of an investment especially considering the price of other masternodes, most of which are run by anonymous developers who routinely abandon projects.

This takes us to the ZenCash team.

II- The Team.

Just like the network, the team is distributed across the globe and now includes well over 50 members (not all represented in the image below), which is very impressive for a grass root project which didn't have an ICO.

The chief scientist of the project is Rob Viglione, a Phd in cryptofinance, ex-Bitshares but also a somehow new figure in the space. You might also recognize Charles Hoskinson from IOHK (the company behind the development of Cardano) listed as an adviser for the project.

Unlike many projects, here there seems to be an actual relationship between the project and its adviser as Charles and Rob have been seen together in multiple podcasts such as this one: