You must be thinking of something else. Matthew Green has said he would have much rather got this implemented in BitCoin.
ZCash forked off of BitCoin because BitCoin core wouldn't accept it. The proposed solution was a "side chain" to BitCoin. Side chains have been being talked about since around 2009, and that's all that is happened: talking. There is no code and no agreement on how they should work.
The fork happened when it became apparent that this would never make it into Bitcoin in any form.
Matthew Green was _insistent_ about making an altcoin. I believe can substantiate this with DKIM-signed emails by Google, if it's actually being refuted. He was especially concerned about difficulties monetizing any other path.
In particular, later I begged for access to the efficient SHA256 circuits which had been created and benchmarked as part of their publications, which were held back from publication with libsnark. ... so that I could begin working on applications of them with Bitcoin, only to be blown off.
> and that's all that is happened: talking. There is no code and
https://github.com/ElementsProject/elements sidechain right here.
"Let me reiterate, I would 10,000x rather have put Zerocash in Bitcoin." - https://twitter.com/matthew_d_green/status/78154154453702656...
> He was especially concerned about difficulties monetizing any other path.
"Rewards doesn't even start the discussion. I'd have done it for free just to see it used." - https://twitter.com/matthew_d_green/status/78153489377171865...
admittedly he does bring up monetization: "And even when you got the code, nobody ever answered the problem of how you pay miners and devs." https://twitter.com/matthew_d_green/status/78154634460341043...
>sidechain right here.
"Last I checked - a few months back - it was just a bunch of ideas. No code on main." "And more importantly, no schedule on when it was going to go live. You can't build something that doesn't exist." - https://twitter.com/matthew_d_green/status/78154605479791821...
"A cynical part of me came to think the whole thing was just a put-on designed to squash competing coins." - https://twitter.com/matthew_d_green/status/78154720002742681...
Let's get real here. These guys are fucking opportunists at best, ponzi median, outright thieves at worst.
Let's do something more reasonable, which least is approximately in the order of magnitude. The BTC market cap is ~$10bil. 1% of that is 100 million dollars. Which means that if Zcash ever becomes more valuable than the phenomenon that was bitcoin, you have a 100 million dollar stake for the founders. A pretty penny, but still a far cry from your ridiculous half a trillion.
The pitch is that zcash will "uplift millions of people". As per your numbers, you're saying 2e-06 proportion of global money. Can you see the disjoint between the ambition pitched and the (entirely reasonable) numbers that you cite? They're pitching a game change ("zcash begins") and you're saying their target is 2 in every 1 million dollars of global cash?? Come on. If that's true, fine, 10%. But that is not "uplifting millions of people" and this is not "Zcash Begins", biblical style.
What we have here is an unfeasibly large founder's share in the case of success, and this unreasonableness is precisely the signal that indicates that they do not believe in long term success, themselves. Therefore we have a credibility problem.
TL;DR: If they had 1% founders share, they'd have a shot. At 10%, they're doomed to failure. 1% of something or 10% of nothing.
What you're basically doing is analogous to applying planet scales to a galaxy.
Even accounting for miniscule market share, 10% "founders reward" for any venture targeting global money, is a ludicrously large sum and a strong signal of probable charlatanry.
If they can provide 1% of global transaction services for 100 years then sure, $500 billion seems super reasonable.
I mean, that's about 10x of a SnapChat or an Instagram.
From the last thread they pointed out: "Zcash's monetary base will be the same as Bitcoin's — 21 million Zcash currency units (ZEC, or ⓩ) will be mined over time. 10% of that reward will be distributed to the stakeholders in the Zcash Company — founders, investors, employees, and advisors. We call this the “Founders Reward”."
It's nice to have a currency with more security and privacy features in mind but I would be extremely wary of compromises like this for that achievement.