Due to recent event where the Japan’s FSA is reportedly urging exchanges to move away from privacy coins, SmartCash has announced that they are removing the privacy layer. This is a necessary step to achieve worldwide adoption of Smartcash.
https://news.bitcoin.com/japanese-regulator-pressures-exchanges-to-drop-privacy-coins/
However SmartCash did announce today that they are creating a privacy oriented coins and BitcoinConfidential is the name chosen.
https://forum.bitcoin.com/alternative-cryptocurrencies-altcoins/bitcoin-confidential-t83383.html
Most information are still vague but currently for every 1 smartcash you have you will get 10 Bitcoin confidential. This coin is also a Prove of Stake. Moderator also mentioned that a new team will be dedicated to this coin without affecting the current one.
My personal view is that while there are to many bitcoin fork, if done properly and marketed wisely this will be a good move. Hopefully this will ignite some volume to smartcash and more people will learn about smartcash. Which is a good thing as they will learn about smartnode, smart rewards, smartcard, and many other coming features.