Questions

No. There's no token, no presale, no airdrop and nothing to buy. In the novel, zipcoin is simply what private money is called; here it means private payments, which will be in ETH. Anyone selling a zipcoin token isn't this project.

Not perfectly, and it's better to know the limits. Amounts are public; only who paid is hidden. Zipping in is public too. If the postman never approves a deposit, its owner can take it back out publicly with a ragequit, and that shows the link. The postman screens every deposit before it can be spent.

Timing can give you away: zip in and spend a minute later in a quiet pool, and the crowd you hide in is small. Couriers' random delays help. A bigger pool helps most.

No. A courier can delay or refuse your job, but it can't change it: your proof fixes the recipient, the amounts, the message and the courier's own fee. If it signed a receipt and doesn't deliver when it could have, anyone can slash its stake. The pool state it serves can be checked against the chain, and if one courier won't help, another can.

In the novel, sales tax reaches the government in real time and is enforced by random inspection. Here, every payment settles its tax in the same proof, split three ways: part is burned, part pays the couriers who keep the network private, and the rest goes to a treasury that pays the running costs. The tax is paid in ETH. The rates are fixed when the contracts are deployed, and can't exceed 10%: sales tax.

An independent fan of the novel, in the open: every line is on GitHub. It isn't affiliated with Vitalik Buterin, with any company or with any token. It has nothing to sell.

When it's ready. Everything is built and tested locally today, with real zero-knowledge proofs. There's no date; follow the repository for news.

The wallet's assistant, named after the local AI most people use in the book. It answers questions, checks a recipient before you pay, and drafts actions as cards you confirm or dismiss. It never asks for your keys or your secret phrase, and it can't move money on its own.