Conclusion

We took a tour of Zcash, where we learned how transactions use your wallet notes and how this impacts privacy. Zcash has several active pools of funds, and as a result, the confidentiality of a transaction depends on what notes your wallet has and where you are sending it.

To simplify the user experience, some wallet apps, like Zashi, require you to put all your funds into the Orchard pool before you can use them.

However, if you pay someone with a Sapling wallet, your transaction reveals the amount.

WARNING

Until every wallet app supports Orchard, users need to be aware that privacy in Zcash is a spectrum. From a t2t transaction to an o2o transaction, we move from no privacy to complete privacy. Understanding this spectrum is paramount to making informed decisions.

Wallet apps cannot foresee what type of address you will send funds to, so they will always make assumptions and compromises.

I encourage you to try various scenarios and observe the resulting privacy level.