Zcash is a cryptocurrency utilizing zero-knowledge proof cryptography to protect the privacy of transactions. Zcash publishes all the payments on a public blockchain but the identity of the sender and the recipient, as well as the amount of transaction, remain private.
History
Zcash was founded by Zooko Wilcox and grew out of the Zerocoin project. The founding scientists of Zcash are Alessandro Chiesa, Christina Garman, Eli Ben-Sasson, Eran Tromer, Ian Miers, Madars Vizra, and Methew Green. The crypto was first announced around the first quarter of 2016, and was officially launched on October, 2016.
Design
The technology behind Zcash protocol is called ZK-SNARK— an acronym for Zero-Knowledge Succinct Non-interactive ARgument of Knowledge. ZK-SNARK is a new form of “zero-knowledge cryptography” that makes all the transactions in Zcash, fully encrypted on the blockchain and to ensure that the confidentiality of transaction metadata is fully preserved.

Timeline
People
Andy Murray
CFO
Benjamin Winston
Director of Product Security
Brad Miller
Developer Relations Manager
Charlie O'Keefe
Engineer
Daira Hopwood
Engineer and Protocol Designer
David Campbell
COO
Elise Hamdon
Communications Manager
Erik Ogilvie-Wigley
Engineer
Josh Swihart
Vice President and Business Development
Further reading
Zcash Mining Guide: How To Mine ZEC Cryptocurrency
Vakeesan Mahalingam
Web
Zerocash: Decentralized Anonymous Payments from Bitcoin
Eli Ben-Sasson, Alessandro Chiesa, Christina Garman, Matthew Green, Ian Miers, Eran Tromer and Madars Virza†
Academic
Documentaries, videos and podcasts
Companies