We have a guide for joining the public testnet: https://github.com/zcash/zcash/wiki/Beta-Guide
Zcash is an implementation of the "Zerocash" protocol. Based on Bitcoin's code, it intends to offer a far higher standard of privacy and anonymity through a sophisticiated zero-knowledge proving scheme which preserves confidentiality of transaction metadata.
Zcash is unfinished and highly experimental. Use at your own risk.
Participation in the Zcash project is subject to a Code of Conduct.
See important security warnings in doc/security-warnings.md.
Zcash is released under the terms of the MIT license. See COPYING for more information or see http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT.