Introduction to Bitcoin Private

Bitcoin Private will feature zk-SNARK or “zero knowledge proof” which ensures privacy on all transactions. It is a fork of both Bitcoin and Zclassic and these two separate coins are merging into a one blockchain. An infograph released from their twitter illustrates the following:

"ZK-Snarks are the most undervalued thing in cryptocurrency right now" Vitalik Buterin

What is zk-SNARK?

"The acronym zk-SNARK stands for “Zero-Knowledge Succinct Non-Interactive Argument of Knowledge,” and refers to a proof construction where one can prove possession of certain information, e.g. a secret key, without revealing that information, and without any interaction between the prover and verifier."

https://z.cash/technology/zksnarks.html
Zk-SNARK or “zero-knowledge proof” is a technological tool to ensure anonymity. This essentially will allow people to make transactions between each other while remaining anonymous.

An example of it's use can be found here: http://fortune.com/2017/12/18/jp-morgan-bitcoin-zcash-wilcox/
As represented in the video, privacy coins will play an important role in the near future and Bitcoin Private may fit such a role for Bitcoin.

Officially, no snapshot date has been announced. A recent update can be found here. Tdlr: fork implentation is ready but there will be a 4 week lead time to allow Bitcoin Private to be avaliable on the exchanges. Please follow the link for additional info.
https://amp.reddit.com/r/BitcoinPrivate/comments/7s09tb/1212018_bitcoin_private_update/?__twitter_impression=true.

Shareholders of Bitcoin and Zclassic will receive a 1:1 ratio of 1 BTCP. In other words, if you are holding 2 BTC and 2 ZCL, you will receive 4 BTCP. Before it is announced, it is advised to keep ZCL in your wallets prior to the announcement. A recent update to this was released yesterday: https://twitter.com/bitcoinprivate
:

There has been a lot of work done by the devs of ZClassic and Bitcoin Private community. The devs promote 100% transparency on their project which can exemplified from this livestream:

and here:

It is a great opportunity receive a free a bitcoin with privacy features.
For the fork to take place, one of the important steps is to make sure the wallets are 100% functional. They recently released a wallet to hold ZCL: ~~~ embed:950492696635985920 Just follow the instructions to download the EOS wallet. twitter metadata:Yml0Y29pbnByaXZhdGV8fGh0dHBzOi8vdHdpdHRlci5jb20vYml0Y29pbnByaXZhdGUvc3RhdHVzLzk1MDQ5MjY5NjYzNTk4NTkyMCBKdXN0IGZvbGxvdyB0aGUgaW5zdHJ1Y3Rpb25zIHRvIGRvd25sb2FkIHRoZSBFT1Mgd2FsbGV0Lnw= ~~~

Currently, they are making developments to the Electrum wallet. From there, after successful alpha testing we can expect an announcement from the team.

Bittrex, Cryptopia, and Coinexchange are three main exchanges that currently list ZCL.
https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/zclassic/#markets
It is not yet known whether Bittrex or other exchanges will allow holders of ZCL and BTC on the exchanges to receive their free Bitcoin Private.

What are the advantages and the practical use for Bitcoin Private?
One of the major the disadvantages for Bitcoin is how it is traceable so anyone using Bitcoin Private can take advantage of it's privacy features. It offers faster transaction speeds than Bitcoin, is ASIC resistant and uses Equilhash so it can be mined with GPUs.

Final Notes:
Privacy coins could be a big interest for this year of 2018. From what I gather, regulation of cryptocurrencies will be discussed during the upcoming G20 Summit. Recently announced by Germany’s Central Bank, any attempt to regulate bitcoin or other crypto currencies will require a large-scale international cooperation around the globe. One of the fundamental aspect of cryptocurrencies is that all transactions could be done anonymously. If crackdowns are be followed through like the tightening measures like China or other governments around the world, investors and the market may find certain solutions with privacy coins.

Secondly, there is a fundamental and universal right to privacy for all individuals and businesses. From this, I remain confident that this project may inspire existing and new shareholders to contemplate on the privacy aspects of their portfolio. As always, it is encouraged for one to do his/her research.

Additional Resources:
Reddit Bitcoin Private FAQ
BTCP Website
https://btcprivate.org/
BTCP ANN
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2675257
ZCL Blockchain explorer
http://www.myzcl.com/
BTCP Discord group
https://discordapp.com/invite/9DyxXnx
ZCL Discord Group
https://discordapp.com/invite/fFZFsyB
Article about ZEC fork to create ZCL
https://forum.z.cash/t/zec-zcash-will-die-zclassic-is-here-now/8147/40
BTCP Reddit
https://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinPrivate/
BTC Private Twitter
https://twitter.com/bitcoinprivate
ZCL Twitter
https://twitter.com/ZclassicCoin
BTC Private Github
https://github.com/BTCPrivate/BitcoinPrivate
ZCL Github
https://github.com/z-classic/zclassic

ZK-SNARK resources:
Interestingly, there are real published studies of 'Zero Knowledge Proof' in the past with this one from the 90’s. Keep in mind this was before published before Bitcoin or blockchain technology. https://people.csail.mit.edu/silvio/Selected%20Scientific%20Papers/Zero%20Knowledge/Noninteractive_Zero-Knowkedge.pdf
A more modern publication can be found here: https://eprint.iacr.org/2014/396.pdf
Official Etherium Blog on zn-snarks: https://blog.ethereum.org/2016/12/05/zksnarks-in-a-nutshell/

Contribute to Github:
If you are a programmer and would like to help contribute with your skills, you can find ZCL github here.
https://github.com/BTCP-community/electrum-zcl
They will require alpha testers for the new electrum wallet so please support them if you can. There are currently over 8000 commits and 194 contributors.

Donations:
If you would like to help the ZCL contribution/development team for their honest and hard work, please help by donating to the following addresses:

ZCL address: t1gsePJZ6ojJYygj3PWMGJfojPUoMd5AVfU
BTC address: 1CqSD9rxdQnKEwzqqbLwpgwCeQikFCifPj
LTC address: LNYzDrUeX6PSecu4sL4eZkuJGaSXnf8GUH

Note: To be clear, those are NOT my addresses. To double check before contributing, please visit here: https://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinPrivate/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ZClassic/