Overview of Ycash: Hard Fork of Zcash

In this era of digitization, where there are already many established cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Zcash (that have been revolutionizing the money markets quite well), Ycash has evolved as a new digital currency. It is the “hard fork” of the Zcash and was launched in April 2019. Now, what is Ycash, and how is it developed? This article will unveil Ycash step by step that will help readers understand this newly evolved digital currency.

What is Ycash?

Ycash is the “hard fork” of the Zcash blockchain. At a block height of 5,70,000 of the Zcash, a new blockchain split off from Zcash with some technical changes. However, both the blockchains, the new Ycash, and the old Zcash share the same transaction history.

Ycash uses different address formats than Zcash, and therefore, there is no chance of accidentally sending Zcash to a Ycash address or vice versa. Also, as Ycash is a hard fork of Zcash, every user holding Zcash at the time of the fork receives the same amount of Ycash, and therefore there is no chance of any confusion creeping in. But for that, the users must have control over their Zcash private keys to get their Ycash.

How is Ycash Developed?

Ycash is developed from the Zcash algorithm and has similar blockchain history as that of Zcash’s. This means that every Zcash private key holders at a block height of 570,000 will be able to use the same private keys to access the same number of Ycash coins. However, Ycash is independent of both the Zcash Foundation and the Electric Coin Company, which is the parent company of Zcash.

90% of the total 21 million Ycash currencies released in 2019 were distributed through the mining, while 5% of the currencies of the block height #570,000 went to the Ycash Development Fund.

How is Ycash Different from Zcash?

When Zcash was launched in October 2016, it had the potential to challenge Bitcoin’s dominance at that time. It had robust features like a market cap of 21 million, like Bitcoin’s, a robust algorithm called Equihash, and the ability to receive and send encrypted transactions.

But after some time, Zcash’s mining algorithm was targeted by ASIC, and it became impossible to mine Zcash without ASIC. It was then that the Zcash community forked into a new blockchain network and dubbed it as Ycash with a similar market cap of 21 million. However, Ycash still had the power to run the Equihash codebase of Zcash.

Ycash is different from Zcash in the following ways:

• Ycash preserves the Founder’s Reward of Zcash capped at 2.1 million by reducing its rate from a perpetual 20% to a mere 5%.
• Ycash combats the ASIC resistance on the Zcash blockchain.
• Some portion of the Founder’s Reward is allocated to the non-profit fund of Ycash – YDF or the Ycash Development Fund.