Zcash experiences its first 'friendly fork,' Ycash

According to a tweet posted by The Ycash Foundation, the first block has been mined, and the official fork has taken place.

The company wrote, “The first #Ycash block was mined at 7:36:51 PM PDT. In addition to the coinbase transaction, there were 3 other transactions in the block, one of which was shielded. Congratulations again to Luxor Mining Pool (@LuxorTechTeam) for mining the first block!”

The nonprofit Ycash Foundation first announced the fork earlier this year. The foundation was established in order to assure the blockchain remains separate from Zcash and the Zcash Foundation.

The new blockchain was launched to “restore a goal” of mining on commodity hardware and make sure the Founders Reward would be capped as originally planned, which the Ycash Foundation believes are “essential to a fair distribution of coins.”

All Zcash holders were promised the amount of Ycash they receive will mirror the amount of Zcash they own at the time of the fork. In order to receive the tokens, holders needed to have their Zcash private keys. What is more, ZecWallet was also forked so it could support Ycash.