The launch of the genesis block for a new cryptocurrency designed to make real the anonymity once thought to be offered by bitcoin has been delayed once again.
Zooko Wilcox, early cypherpunk and founder of anonymous cryptocurrency startup Zcash, told CoinDesk yesterday that his startup will likely be pushing back the mining of its blockchain in order to give multiple third-party auditors the time to perform in-depth code analyses.
The reason, he said, is that the fallout surrounding the collapse of The DAO , a short-lived, much-hyped application on the ethereum blockchain, has given him pause about his work.
Notably, Wilcox’s security firm, Least Authority, was commissioned to perform an audit of ethereum ‘s code.
While it is widely agreed that the collapse of The DAO was not the result of a problem with ethereum itself, Wilcox wants to take further precautions now that he’s preparing to launch a competing cryptocurrency.
Speaking with CoinDesk at American Banker’s Blockchain + Digital Currencies conference yesterday, Wilcox said: "I feel bad that we didn’t do a better job of making DAO disaster-like problems harder for people to encounter." As part of his latest endeavor, Wilcox has hired two security firms to perform an audit of the code designed to enable anonymity for the sender and receiver of a transaction, and hide the amount.
Earlier this year, Zcash launched its alpha product built from the Zerocash protocol created by Wilcox and others. Then, last week, the startup launched an alpha update to the product with guidelines to side channel attacks and other security concerns.
Zcash has raised $1m venture capital from institutional investors including Pantera Capital, Digital Currency Group and Fenbushi Capital. Individual investors Naval Ravikant and Roger Ver also backed the company. Cautious rollout Though Wilcox describes his team of 16 employees, including seven computer scientists, as "super-world-class", he […]
