The privacy guarantees discussion here reminds me why I've been obsessed with ZK proofs lately. For anyone diving deeper: the fundamental difference is Monero's ring signatures obfuscate all transactions by default (albeit with a larger blockchain size), while Zcash's zk-SNARKs offer stronger cryptographic privacy but require users to opt-in to shielded transactions—which most don't. The trusted setup ceremony issue is real, but I'd argue the bigger problem is UX friction making privacy optional rather than default. Been researching this for a document management project, and the lesson is clear: if privacy requires extra steps, most users won't bother. Default-private architectures are harder to build but the only way to actually protect users at scale.
In zcash the wallet is what’s responsible for what is “default”. Zashi is private by default, but the optional transparency of zcash is a feature that makes zcash tenable from a regulatory standpoint.
The trusted ceremony is solved now, btw.
Also, Monero is not all that anonymous - the anonymity set is only about 11 transactions, compare that to zcash’s anonymity set of every shielded transaction ever.