Here's the thing about privacy coins—Monero and Zcash take pretty different approaches under the hood. Monero relies on ring signatures to obfuscate transaction sources, mixing your tx with others to hide the real sender. Zcash, meanwhile, uses encryption-based shielded pools where transaction details stay encrypted on-chain. Both protect privacy, but the mechanics are distinct. Ring signatures = mixing layer, while encryption = cryptographic lockbox. Neither is necessarily "better"—depends on your threat model and what privacy guarantees matter most to you.