What is Ycash?

Ycash is a digital currency whose software is based on Zcash, which is based on Bitcoin. Like Bitcoin and Zcash, its total supply is capped at 21 million coins. The first 570,000 blocks of the Ycash blockchain match the first 570,000 blocks of the Zcash blockchain, so holders of Zcash private keys effective at that block height can access the corresponding amount of Ycash.

Ycash is described as a chain fork of Zcash and as leveraging Zcash codebase privacy features. The description states that 90% of the 21 million coins are allocated via mining, with 5% starting at block height 570,000 going to a Ycash Development Fund managed by the Ycash Foundation. It also says the mining approach targets commodity hardware by using periodic changes to the mining algorithm, aiming to reduce reliance on specialized hardware.