The Electric Coin Co., or ECC, the entity responsible for the advancement of privacy coin Zcash (ZEC), unveiled new code for the blockchain and crypto community.
The company opened its Halo 2 source code — "an updated, more efficient version of ECC’s recursive proof composition that eliminates the need for a trusted setup in Zcash," said a Sept. 1 blog post from the ECC. "It may also advance a promising scalability solution for Zcash and other blockchains," the post added, noting the Halo structure adds speed, among other things.
Initiating a private network with Zcash utilizing Zero-Knowledge Succinct Non-Interactive Argument of Knowledge, or zk-SNARKs, requires a trusted setup. This essentially means specific, choice parties must oversee the network in the beginning. The new Halo 2 source code allows for process completion without trusted setups when using Zcash.
The Ethereum Foundation also helped in the development of Halo 2, the blog post detailed, noting trusted setups will be a thing of the past by next year if all goes according to the ECC's goals. "This would also set the stage for future support of recursive proofs in support of layer 1 scalability," the post detailed, Adding:
"In the months ahead, we will be committing significant resources in R&D, engineering, business development, marketing, operations and third-party support to ensure Halo 2 will be productized safely and securely. Ultimately, it will be the Zcash community that decides whether Halo 2 becomes part of Zcash."
Zcash sits among several other prominent anonymity-based digital assets in the crypto space — a concept gaining relevance in an er of rising digital surveillance.