14 Italian MPs jointly launched a proposal to ban the use of Zcash in the country

After a long wait, cryptocurrency enthusiasts finally witnessed the release of Zcash. Currently, Zcash has been launched on several major exchanges, including Kraken, Poloniex and Bitfinex. Developers said that Zcash has achieved the highest level of anonymity and has surpassed Bitcoin in terms of privacy functions. The currency transfer data in the Zcash network is not public and is protected by a zero-knowledge proof cryptography technology called zk-SNARK. Therefore, Zcash belongs to the "anonymous competitive coin club" with Monero and Dash.

Zcash has already attracted widespread attention from Bitcoin enthusiasts before its release. Its strong anonymity features make it a strong competitor in the cryptocurrency market. However, in Italy, the release of Zcash has led to a proposal to ban anonymous cryptocurrencies.

Like most countries in the world, Italy is not very fond of cryptocurrencies. Although Italy has not set detailed rules for the circulation of Bitcoin in the country, the government will regulate other currencies that are expected to become mainstream. Zcash has caused considerable controversy before its official release. 14 members of parliament even jointly signed a new proposal to ban the circulation of anonymous cryptocurrencies in the country.

The news was announced on Twitter by IT expert Stefano Quintarelli, who also supported the decision of the country's lawmakers.

Fourteen lawmakers have signed a bill to ban the use of anonymous cryptocurrency Zcash in Italy.

Quintarelli's tweet was attacked by many opponents. Some suggested that he should "do something more useful", while others laughed at his useless work because cryptocurrencies are essentially impossible to ban. The congressman involved has not yet given a reasonable explanation, which has led to the incident becoming more and more serious.

Maybe cryptocurrency enthusiasts don't take this proposal seriously, but the public's view is very different. Obviously, cryptocurrency cannot be banned by law unless its operation is solely responsible for a company. The advent of Zcash seems to be similar to the situation faced by Ripple at the beginning. It is currently in a rather awkward position with unclear legal definitions.

Is Zcash a cancer in Italy?

Italian lawmakers are determined to ban anonymous cryptocurrencies because the country is currently facing a bottleneck in its development. Domestic banks are not functioning well, and an economic crisis seems to be coming soon. Therefore, the government does not want to see a new cryptocurrency drain the liquidity of the local economic system. Therefore, directly banning the use of Zcash will definitely have an immediate effect.

In fact, the euro is the truly anonymous currency. Euro transactions within the bank are tracked, but once a euro leaves the banking system, there is no trace of where it goes. Most crimes involve cash and bank transfers, so cash is the biggest threat compared to Zcash, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

It turns out that the government has no idea about cryptocurrencies. They just want to control cryptocurrencies, but they have failed repeatedly. The signing of the proposal does not mean that Zcash is illegal in Italy, because there is no provision in the law yet. As it stands, Zcash cannot be banned no matter how much these lawmakers want it.

However, Quintarelli is not the only one in Europe who has proposed to ban cryptocurrencies. In July this year, the European Commission (EC) proposed to use anti-money laundering (AML) and anti-terrorist financing regulations to regulate stored-value cards and digital currencies. Once the European Union (EU) government approves this proposal, cryptocurrency platforms will have to monitor transactions and verify user identity information just like banks.