A few have probably heard of ZCash by now that attempts to dethrone Bitcoin by using most of Bitcoin's code and adding their own anonymity scheme to the mix. There are quite a few flaws with their approach, but I'll first go over why Bitcoin was successful in the first place.

Very few really knew of Bitcoin's potential early on

This fact caused the coin to have very few front loaders. People who bought/mined coins early on, spent a good deal of them away. Coins that were bought at $1, were mostly sold at $10. Coins that were bought at $10 were mostly sold at $100, and so on and so forth. Satoshi may be alive and holding onto those million bitcoins, or he may already be dead (Hal Finney). Bitcoin's success comes from its idea and from the lack of control, not because of its tech. The coin has survived as long as it has through sheer perseverance and the will of the people who want to see the tyranny of Banks end.

After the fact, it is infinitely easier to create a plan for world domination. With bitcoin, it will cost someone a great deal in order to implement such a plan now.

It is not about the tech

It really has very little to do with the technology of bitcoin. It is simply the idea that the coin isn't controlled by anyone. You can't go back in time and so you can't change things and get the world domination part done right. Alt-coins, you can try and have another go at it.

Enters ZCash - Another stab at controlling a coin.

One look at the ZCash advisors

Gavin Anderson - known quite well in the crypto community as a complete sell out (second only to Mike Hearn).

Vitalik Buterin - Not worth commenting on.

20% of ZCash mined goes toward the founding team and investors.

Hold on a minute while I go throw up!

Hard to gather the right words to describe the disgust I feel toward this team right now. This is what pure greed looks like.

Their marketing plan will be strong!

One look at their list of investors and I'm sure their marketing will be on point. Their strategy will probably look like this:

1. Form strategic relationships with several grocery stores, even big ones like Safeway, Costco etc.
2. Have ATM machines in place.
3. They already have strong governmental ties.
4. Launch a massive AD campaign pro ZCash and even get Snowden to talk more about how anonymous and amazing ZCash is and how their team is the best in crypto. (Conveniently ignoring the governmental ties they have.)
5. Launch a huge anti-bitcoin campaign.

 

They will fail - just like Ethereum has, just like they all will fail.

Upon launch, this is how I see things playing out:

1. There will be a massive number of forks of ZCash codebase (which is primarily made up of Bitcoin's code).
2. Those forks will not contain the "incredibly greedy and sociopathic 20% reward".

People will start to realize ZCash is just another alt, or they will come around to the truth that it really doesn't matter about any of that. Bitcoin is successful because nobody controls it. And even if Satoshi's coins do end up magically coming into play (which I highly doubt), I'd say he deserves it.

Sincerely,

Sam