ZClassic has been starting to show some signs of life. After peaking in late July at $18.98/0.00232659 BTC, the coin started rapidly dropping off. This pattern lasted until August 14th, when the currency shifted into a slightly erratic sideways mode. August bottom was reached on the 30th, when ZClassic went for $6.52/0.00094092 BTC.
TheCryptoman had the following to say about the currency:
“Huge fan of trends, patterns, and history. $ZCL looks promising as long as Bittrex accepts fork.”
On the topic of Bitmex fork he expands:
“https://twitter.com/BittrexExchange/status/1033072119104655360 – according to that Tweet from Bittrex the key words are “At this time” meaning there is a possibility of them still supporting the fork, which I don’t see why they would not, being the main major exchange to be listing ZCL. I believe they will support the fork soon.”
ZClassic is a fork of Zcash, meaning that it’s a privacy focused, zkSNARKs-based decentralized ledger cryptocurrency. The difference between the two is in the fact that ZClassic lacks the 20% “founders tax” that the Zcash developers collect from their miners in order to amass funds for the development of their product. The coin development efforts are supported by the ZClassic community. Another important distinction is the lack of slow-start mining feature which was introduced to Zcash to artificially engineer scarcity; ZClassic doesn’t have this feature and lets the price be freely created on the market.
The biggest story around ZClassic right now is its upcoming ANON fork. The currency will actually be a ZClassic/Bitcoin fork, taking privacy elements of ZClassic (zkSNARKs) and combining them with Bitcoin’s blockchain-based transaction technology. ANON was announced by John McAfee, well known crypto maverick who previously strongly embraced another ZClassic fork, Bitcoin Private.
ZClassic community isn’t very fond of Bitcoin Private, as the price of ZCL tokens pumped hard before BTCP was airdropped to holders and then crashed down even harder when the airdrop was completed. This created negative feelings with quite a few current and former members of ZCL community, who feel that the coin’s price was pumped and dumped thanks to the fork; naturally, they expect the same thing to happen with the upcoming ANON. The fact that ANON will be handed out in a 2 ANON for 1 ZCL, while having a 1:1 ratio with Bitcoin implies that there is an intentional effort to make people buy more ZCL and drive its price up before the fork launch.
With that in mind, the preparations for the ANON fork are seemingly in full swing. McAfee did his best to market this upcoming coin, confirming that he believes in the team behind the project and thinks there is a distinct need for a currency that keeps its users transactions private. The issue here is that while this need definitely exists, the supply has already been quite filled up with established projects like Monero or Zcash. Still, ZClassic community is mostly supportive of the upcoming fork and ANON is preparing to launch on September 10th.
?Read here a comparison of best privacy coins.
Right now ANON is making the final touches before the launch. Testnet went live on August 10th and has performed well. Masternode requirements and the ANON ratio for ZCL holders has been set. They are seeking support from exchange platforms, with TradeSatoshi and Cryptopia confirming they will support the launch so far. There was talk of Bitfinex being a part of the supporting force but nothing has materialized just yet on that field. Supporting wallets and a potential future cooperation with a chain of crypto-supporting ATM’s have also been announced and you can read more about that here.
Overall, that’s the biggest thing happening right now with ZClassic. Will it actually be as big as they present it? The ANON fork seems like a Bitcoin Private 2.0, with almost the same features as the original ZClassic fork. It also comes in at a moment when the market for privacy coins is already well saturated. On the other hand, they have the funding and they have the developers who seem willing to deliver a solid product. They also have the backing of John McAfee so take that for what you will. September 10th will be the date when the situation around ZClassic and its upcoming fork starts becoming clearer.
