Privacy-centered altcoin Zcash is all set for a ‘friendly’ fork which would create an all-new blockchain independent of the mainnet, but the codebase will be near identical. The new-forked chain would be called Ycash.
The first announcement of the fork was made public in April and the project will be headed by a long-time Zcash proponent Howard Loo. Loo explained that the decision to fork the mainnet was made to avoid extending Zcash’s system of developer funding known as the “Founder’s Reward” beyond the existing criteria of 10% of the total supply cap of the token.
Loo explained the reason behind the fork in a forum post and wrote,
“We are also launching Ycash to uphold a promise – that the Zcash Founders Reward would be forever capped at 2.1 million coins – that we fear will come under increasing pressure between now and the expiration of the Founders Reward in October 2020,”
Zcash community backs the proposed fork
The main reason for a hard-fork has always been a dispute or difference in opinion among the developers or community members of a blockchain network, the Zcash fork is a complete contrast to the general trend. Almost everyone in the Zcash community is supportive of the proposed changes and creating an independent chain.
Founder of the coin Zooko Wilcox has come out in support of Loo’s initiative and stated that it is fine to agree to disagree on certain changes that will make the new chain of Ycash backward-incompatible to the main chain. Sam Ouimet, a big-time crypto trader and analyst says,
“From a speculator’s standpoint, network splits often present an intriguing investment opportunity, New money often buys up the cryptocurrency being forked in order to secure his/her claims of the new coins.”
Anyone who is in possession of Zcash token before the fork in a wallet that supports exporting of private keys would receive an equal amount of the newly formed coin Ycash. Loo explains,
“In order to access Ycash coins, you need to have your Zcash coins at the time of the fork in a wallet that allows you to export your private keys, One possible way to claim your coins is to download your ZEC wallet and make sure your coins are in the ZEC wallet at the time of the fork.”
However one must note that exporting private keys can come with various vulnerabilities and one must be careful in what they want. Hard-forks like these serve as a perfect opportunity for many to earn extra tokens of a new blockchain. It has been evident from the past forks that the forked coin prices dip at the start but bounce back after some time.
