Synopsis

Zcash (ZEC) is a fork of Bitcoin (BTC) that launched back in October of 2016. The Zcash developers left most of the monetary policy the same as Bitcoin (e.g. Zcash also has a fixed supply of 21 million ZEC), but they made a TON of improvements to the protocol in terms of user privacy.

Bitcoin is notorious in the crypto industry for being loosely pseudonymous, and Zcash offers a viable and truly private alternative.

I think ZEC will do well over the next 1-3 years as we enter the next crypto bull run and the demand for private payments continues to increase. But over the long haul (5-10 year time frame), I'm less optimistic about Zcash because Bitcoin WILL become more and more private over time as Confidential Transactions, Schnorr Signatures, and the Lightning Network begin to roll out on the Bitcoin network.