About this episode

Arjun Khemani discusses unstoppable private money with Zooko Wilcox and Josh Swihart, exploring the implications of Zcash and financial privacy.

My conversation with Zooko Wilcox and Josh Swihart on unstoppable private money. Zooko Wilcox is a legendary cypherpunk and one of the founders of Zcash—private, digital money. Josh Swihart is the CEO of Electric Coin Company, the team behind the Zcash protocol and the Zashi wallet app. Topics we discuss are well captured by the timestamps below. Watch on YouTube or X . Listen on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , or any other podcast platform. Follow me on X for updates on future episodes. Timestamps 0:00 - Maya Protocol integrates with Zcash 3:52 - Coinbase social engineering attack 7:43 - Private money negates capital controls 14:13 - Privacy comes from money at rest 18:24 - The Zashi effect and future roadmap 25:11 - Project Tachyon 39:10 - Zcash’s anonymity set doesn’t depend on the number of its users 45:37 - Turnstiles in Zcash and the 2018 inflation bug 57:28 - “ZK” has become a marketing stunt among crypto projects 59:48 - On Binance delisting ZEC 1:01:35 - A transition toward using crypto as it was originally intended 1:04:52 - Should exchanges use transparent addresses? 1:17:38 - Coin holder voting in Zcash 1:23:38 - Sci-fi influence 1:28:37 - Gary Gensler 1:29:40 - Why I like…

People in this episode

Host: Arjun Khemani

Guests: Zooko Wilcox, Josh Swihart

Topics covered

• private money
• Zcash
• cypherpunk
• capital controls
• crypto
• anonymity
• financial privacy

Keywords

• unstoppable private money
• Zcash
• cypherpunk
• capital controls
• privacy
• crypto
• anonymity set
• Zashi
• Coinbase
• Binance

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Electric Coin Company, Zcash, Coinbase, Binance

Products: Zashi wallet app

Books & works: Maya Protocol

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• Ethan Thornton: The Future of Warfare · March 15, 2025 · 53 min
• Peter Boghossian: Moral Relativism and The Future of The West · February 26, 2025 · 1h 16m
• Zooko, Nate Wilcox, and Sean Bowe: Zcash · January 21, 2025 · 3h 21m

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