Ethereum [ETH] and ZCash [ZEC] merger would be “interesting”: Vitalik Buterin

Vlad Zamfir, a researcher at Ethereum Foundation, recently posed a question on Twitter - could anyone think of two cryptocurrency communities that might come up with the first blockchain merger? Zooko Wilcox, founder and CEO of ZCash, was quick to respond with Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin's hypothetical example of a Zcash-Ethereum merger, and stated that he liked the idea.

At Crypto 2018 @VitalikButerin used “ETH❤ZEC” as the hypothetical example, which pleased me. His conclusion was it won't happen because it would result in 3 chains, not 1. My conclusion is: that's fine! See also https://t.co/4gqoS0B3cJ

— zooko (@zooko) September 23, 2018

However, Vitalik Buterin wrote that communities cannot “credibly commit” to a merger. A merger would probably divide the community - one group would likely be excited about the merger and push it through, while the other might be strategically silent until it happens. He added that it is not impossible, but is very complex. “…the complexities of corporate mergers and acquisitions times ten. It could probably only happen between two communities that highly trust each other where the cores of both are internally united.” Despite the complexities, Buterin believes that a merger “that's explicitly okay with 3 coins would be interesting.” In fact, he explained, “One idea would be for "Zcash Frontier Edition" to merge ETH and ZEC coin balances and combine ETH PoS + sharding with ZEC first-class snark integration, and then "Pure Zcash" could be more conservative.” Vitalik has openly shared his view towards ZCash, calling it as one of the best blockchain projects. One of the biggest problems arising from a merger is the fate of the original chains and tokens. In that case, would they work side-by-side along with the new chain or will  it stop working altogether and the merged tokens will be given out to the users?  Only time will tell, since there hasn't been a merger of this kind just yet. See also: Justin Sun: deploy dApps on TRON network instead of Ethereum; Vitalik Buterin remarks Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin opines about New York Attorney General’s exchange report Join our telegram group