Worldcoin (WLD) vs Zcash (ZEC)

The mission of the Worldcoin project is to build the world’s largest identity and financial network as a public utility, giving ownership to everyone. A key component of the Worldcoin project is the development of the foundational infrastructure that will be important for a world where AI plays an increasingly large role. The Worldcoin system revolves around World ID, a privacy-preserving global identity network. World ID enables users to verify their humanness online while maintaining their privacy through zero-knowledge proofs. Using World ID, individuals will be able to prove that they are a real, unique human to any platform that integrates with the protocol, including to web3 systems, social networking sites, and governmental programs. This will enable fair airdrops or token/NFT sales, provide protection against bots/sybil attacks on social media, and enable the fairer distribution of limited governmental resources. Furthermore, World ID can also enable global democratic processes and novel forms of governance (e.g., via quadratic voting), and it may eventually show a path to AI-funded UBI. The Worldcoin token (WLD), alongside World ID, will let users participate in governing the Worldcoin protocol. To engage with the Worldcoin protocol, individuals must first download a first wallet app that supports the creation of a World ID. Users visit a physical imaging device called the Orb to get their World ID Orb-verified. Orbs are operated by a network of independent local businesses called Orb Operators. The Orb uses multispectral sensors to verify humanness and uniqueness to issue an Orb-verified World ID, with all images being promptly deleted on-device per default (absent explicit consent to Data Custody). All Orb-verified World IDs holders are entitled to claim recurring grants of free WLD tokens, subject to certain availability restrictions. The WLD token is designed as a utility token with governance properties.

Zcash is a decentralized and open-source cryptocurrency that offers privacy and selective transparency of transactions. Zcash payments are published on a public blockchain, but the sender, recipient, and amount of a transaction remain private. Zcash is based on peer-reviewed cryptographic research, and built by a security-specialized engineering team on an open source platform based on Bitcoin Core's battle-tested codebase. Our improvement over Bitcoin is the addition of privacy. Zcash uses advanced cryptographic techniques, namely zero-knowledge proofs, to guarantee the validity of transactions without revealing additional information about them. How Zcash works Zcash encrypts the contents of shielded transactions. Since the payment information is encrypted, the protocol uses a novel cryptographic method to verify their validity. Zcash uses a zero-knowledge proof construction called a zk-SNARK, developed by our team of experienced cryptographers based on recent breakthroughs in cryptography. These constructions allow the network to maintain a secure ledger of balances without disclosing the parties or amounts involved. Instead of publicly demonstrating spend-authority and transaction values, the transaction metadata is encrypted and zk-SNARKs are used to prove that nobody is cheating or stealing. Zcash also enables users to send public payments which work similarly to Bitcoin. With the support for both shielded and transparent addresses, users can choose to send Zcash privately or publicly. Zcash payments sent from a shielded address to a transparent address reveal the received balance, while payments from a transparent address to a shielded address protect the receiving value.