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Monero, Zcash, and BEAM make different privacy tradeoffs rather than offering three versions of the same design. Monero makes sender, recipient, and amount privacy the default. Zcash lets users choose between transparent and shielded transactions, so privacy depends on the addresses and transaction path used. BEAM documents confidential transactions by default through Mimblewimble, Lelantus, and Dandelion++ routing, while transaction type and wallet metadata still affect disclosure. Official documentation reviewed for this comparison does not provide a fair, current head-to-head benchmark for throughput, fees, storage growth, or performance under load.
What “confidentiality” means in this comparison
Privacy is not one switch. A transaction can conceal or reveal different categories of information:
- Sender: who authorized the spend.
- Recipient: which destination received funds.
- Amount: the value transferred.
- Transaction graph: links between inputs, outputs, and later spends.
- Network metadata: information exposed by wallets, nodes, propagation, logs, or user disclosures.
The three projects protect these categories differently. Protocol privacy also does not eliminate risks from wallet backups, remote nodes, network observation, screenshots, exchange records, or voluntarily disclosed transaction identifiers.
At-a-glance comparison
| Dimension | Monero | Zcash | BEAM |
|---|---|---|---|
| Default confidentiality | Sender, recipient, and amount privacy are built into normal transactions. | Depends on whether the transaction uses transparent or shielded addresses. | Documentation describes private-by-default transactions that hide sender, receiver, and amount on-chain. |
| Main mechanisms | Ring signatures, stealth addresses, and RingCT. | Shielded pools for protected address and value data; transparent addresses expose public details. | Mimblewimble, Lelantus, and Dandelion++ routing. |
| Important leakage or choice | Sender privacy is probabilistic; remote-node and propagation information remain separate concerns. | Transparent use, mixed transparent/shielded flows, and disclosed metadata can create links. | Transaction types differ; an offline public address can reveal spend timing to the sender, while wallet history and metadata are stored locally. |
| Scalability evidence in the reviewed documentation | Flexible block size is described, but no directly comparable throughput, fee, or storage-growth result is provided. | Orchard is described as a shielded pool intended to support future scalability improvements, not as a published benchmark. | No directly comparable throughput, fee, or storage-growth measurement is provided. |
| Auditability conclusion | Concealment mechanisms are documented, but the reviewed material does not establish a complete comparative supply-audit result. | Participant-controlled selective disclosure is documented; the 21 million ZEC supply parameter does not by itself make shielded activity publicly inspectable. | The reviewed material is insufficient to rank independent auditability or supply-verification guarantees against the other two. |
Monero: privacy is the normal transaction path
How Monero hides the parties and amount
Monero’s documented design assigns a different mechanism to each major field. Ring signatures place the real input among decoys, stealth addresses create one-time recipient addresses, and RingCT conceals transaction amounts. The technical specification describes a ring size of 16, meaning 15 decoys accompany the actual input in the ring.
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A ring is an ambiguity set, not a promise that every real-world sender is untraceable. Monero’s documentation characterizes sender privacy as “probabilistic / plausible deniability,” while describing recipient and amount privacy as stronger properties. The ring therefore changes what can be inferred from the chain; it does not guarantee anonymity against every combination of external information and network observation.
What Monero’s default does not cover automatically
On-chain defaults do not settle how a transaction reaches the network. Remote-node use, propagation patterns, wallet logs, exchange records, and a user’s own disclosures can provide information outside the ring, stealth-address, and RingCT mechanisms. Treat network privacy as a separate layer when evaluating Monero.
Scalability information available
Monero documentation describes a flexible block-size mechanism that can respond to transaction demand. That design description is not a throughput test and cannot be used to rank Monero against Zcash or BEAM. The same documentation states that native off-chain atomic swaps are not currently supported; that is a feature status, not a measurement of transaction capacity.
Rank #2
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Zcash: privacy depends on the mode and the path
Transparent and shielded addresses are different systems for disclosure
Zcash supports two address modes. Transparent transactions expose public address and value information. Shielded transactions protect address and value data through the shielded pool. Calling a transaction “a Zcash transaction” therefore does not identify its privacy level.
Privacy can also change across a transaction’s path. Moving value between transparent and shielded areas, using mixed flows, or revealing transaction identifiers and counterparty details can create linkability even when part of the activity was shielded. Zcash documentation recommends holding funds in shielded addresses and avoiding unnecessary disclosure of transaction IDs and counterparty information.
Selective disclosure is controlled by participants
Zcash documentation explicitly describes participant-controlled selective disclosure. A participant can provide information to an authorized party without making the details visible to every public observer. That capability answers an authorized-disclosure requirement; it is different from making all shielded transaction contents publicly auditable.
Rank #3
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Scalability information available
NU5 documentation describes Orchard as a shielded pool intended to support future scalability improvements. “Intended” is important: the statement describes protocol direction, not an independently measured throughput, fee, latency, or storage-growth advantage. No comparable all-three benchmark is established by the reviewed official material.
BEAM: confidential by default, with transaction-type caveats
What the protocol hides
BEAM documentation describes private-by-default transactions in which sender, receiver, and amount are hidden on-chain. The design combines Mimblewimble and Lelantus, with Dandelion++ routing intended to reduce straightforward network-propagation linkage.
The offline-address timing disclosure
BEAM transaction types do not all disclose the same information. Documentation notes that a public offline address may reveal to the sender when its funds are spent. It does not reveal the later recipient or amount, but the timing information is still a meaningful distinction from a claim of universal concealment.
Rank #4
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Wallet metadata remains local information
BEAM documentation states that wallet transaction history and metadata are stored locally. Local storage can improve what is absent from the public chain, but it also makes the wallet, its backups, access controls, and logs important parts of the privacy model. A confidential ledger does not make locally retained metadata disappear.
What can—and cannot—be concluded about scalability
There is no source-supported head-to-head throughput ranking for these networks. The official pages reviewed describe mechanisms and design goals, not a common workload run on the same software versions, hardware, network conditions, and geography.
| Metric | Evidence for all three systems | How to interpret it |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | Not established on a comparable basis. | Do not rank the networks from protocol descriptions alone. |
| Fees | No directly comparable figure is provided. | Fees vary with demand, transaction construction, and wallet behavior; a single undocumented number would mislead. |
| Storage growth | No directly comparable measurement is provided. | Privacy mechanisms and pruning or pool designs may affect storage, but the reviewed sources do not quantify a cross-network result. |
| Load performance | No common stress test is documented. | Any later benchmark must state its date, software version, hardware, workload, and network conditions. |
Monero’s flexible block-size description, Zcash’s Orchard scalability objective, and BEAM’s protocol components are useful engineering context. None is evidence that one network processes more transactions, costs less, or grows more slowly under a defined workload.
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Auditability is three separate questions
Can observers verify transaction validity?
All three systems use cryptographic validation rules, but privacy changes what ordinary observers can inspect directly. A confidential transaction can be valid without exposing its sender, recipient, or amount. Public visibility and cryptographic validity should not be treated as the same property.
Can observers verify monetary supply integrity?
Zcash documentation records a fixed total-supply parameter of 21 million ZEC. That parameter states the intended limit; it does not, by itself, answer what an outside auditor can see about every shielded transaction. The reviewed Monero and BEAM material likewise does not provide enough evidence for a complete, apples-to-apples ranking of supply-verification guarantees.
Can a participant authorize disclosure?
Zcash explicitly documents participant-controlled selective disclosure. This is useful when an owner must demonstrate information to a counterparty, auditor, or other authorized party. It should not be described as public auditability, because a disclosure granted to one party does not automatically expose shielded details to everyone.
For Monero and BEAM, the reviewed material establishes concealment mechanisms and wallet or protocol behavior but does not establish a complete independent-audit comparison with Zcash. A responsible conclusion is therefore narrower than “most auditable” or “least auditable.”
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Which design fits which requirement?
| Requirement | Closest documented fit | Condition to verify |
|---|---|---|
| Privacy without choosing a special address mode for each payment | Monero or BEAM | Check network and wallet metadata practices; BEAM transaction types have different disclosure behavior. |
| Ability to use transparent transfers when public traceability is required | Zcash | Use of a transparent address exposes public details and can affect links to later shielded activity. |
| Participant-authorized selective disclosure | Zcash | Selective disclosure is not the same as public visibility of shielded transactions. |
| A claim based on measured throughput or fees | None can be selected from these sources alone | Require a dated, reproducible benchmark with stated versions, hardware, workload, and network conditions. |
| Minimal public transaction detail by default | Monero or BEAM | Account for remote nodes, propagation, local wallet records, and address-specific caveats. |
Practical checks before relying on any of the three
- Identify which fields must be hidden: sender, recipient, amount, graph links, network origin, or only some of these.
- For Zcash, confirm that every relevant wallet and payment flow uses shielded addresses when confidentiality is required; document any transparent-to-shielded or shielded-to-transparent transition.
- For Monero, treat the 16-member ring as a probabilistic sender-obfuscation mechanism, and separately review node, propagation, and wallet logging choices.
- For BEAM, select the transaction type deliberately and assess what an offline address reveals to the sender at spend time.
- Protect local wallet histories, metadata, backups, and logs; public-chain privacy does not protect an exposed device or an exported record.
- When comparing capacity, reject unqualified TPS, fee, or storage claims unless the test conditions and software versions are published.
Bottom line
Choose based on the privacy failure you are trying to avoid, not on a single “most private” label. Monero offers a consistent default model covering sender, recipient, and amount, with probabilistic sender protection and separate network-level risks. Zcash offers the broadest choice between public and shielded behavior and documents participant-controlled selective disclosure, but the privacy result depends heavily on address mode and transaction path. BEAM documents confidential transactions by default, while its transaction types and locally retained metadata require closer operational review. None of the reviewed sources supports a defensible overall winner for scalability or auditability.
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