"ZODL is to Zcash What Coinbase Was to Bitcoin" | Josh Swihart on ZEC’s Awakening

And, uh, w-what about just the current moment? 2026, we have AI, p-we have people chronically online.

W-why does Zcash stand out in that environment? What does Zcash mean for you in the modern times, since you've been with Zcash for almost a decade now?

Yeah, I've been with Zcash ar-around the ecosystem at least for a decade, full-time for more, more than eight years.

So this, y-you know, this for me became my life's work.

So I was a CEO of another company, an owner in that company, since sold it and decided this is what I need to work on, uh, full time.

Because as a society, if we don't have privacy or private money on the web, we'll en-we'll enter dystopia.

I think Balaji said it very succinctly somewhere else, it's, it's, uh, Zcash or it's communism.

I believe that same thing, where, like, we have an expectation of privacy or some level of privacy on the internet today.

So I can choose to disclose information, and it's my choice as to what I disclose.

But if I want to make a purchase, I have an expectation that that interaction between that vendor is encrypted.

So I'm choosing to disclose some information with that vendor, but I'm not choosing to disclose my credit card information or that purchase with my neighbor or anybody else that may be snooping on the internet.

And so if, if crypto is really gonna be used as money on the internet, as internet money, we have to have privacy for agency to be tr-who we truly are, for security, and even for censorship resistance.

You can't have censorship resistance without, without privacy.

So I think this is, uh, existential.

I think this is not a crypto thing.

I think this is a world...

I, I think it's important for the world, and I think Zcash is world-changing, and I think it's best in class, and it's the best chance that we have for humanity to kind of realize that kind of freedom online.

If you just go back to twenty sixteen when you started with Zcash or just went down the crypto rabbit hole originally, privacy was said a lot more back thenThan it was in maybe the 2020 through 2025 era.

You know, privacy's making a comeback, especially with the context of AI.

But I, I think if, if you asked me, when I first got into crypto in 2017, not terribly long after you, and you asked me what crypto would be like in 2025 and beyond, I would've said, "Oh, there'd be a ton of privacy." And I look at crypto now, and it's kind of the opposite.

We just did an episode with Ari Redbord from TRM Labs.

It's kind of like a Chainalysis.

And he talked about how the FBI, CIA, OFAC, these intelligence agencies are actually kind of into the idea of society moving on-chain because it makes their job easier.

And, you know, one, one half of me is like, "Oh, great," like another, another force to push everyone on crypto.

That's great.