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.