Hi all. I’m Ben, CMO at Raydium, a Solana DEX. Disclosure first: I’m not involved in the token mentioned below and I’m not here to promote it. Part of its trading runs through Raydium pools and we earn fees on those trades, so I’m not neutral either. I’m posting because ZEC distribution on Solana has changed a lot in six weeks, and the interesting question is what happens to those holders next.
What happened
Since early September a Solana memecoin has been paying its holders in ZEC. Every trade takes 3% and pays it out to holders in ZEC through the day. Nobody in Zcash designed this as far as I know. A launchpad on Solana lets a token pick any asset as its trading pair, and this one picked ZEC. I’m deliberately not linking the token. The dashboard below names it because the data is public.
The numbers, onchain, as of 20 Sep
84,000 wallets have received ZEC from it: about 8,700 ZEC, roughly $10M at the time of payout.
38,000 of those wallets had never held ZEC on Solana before. That is the conservative count.
More than a quarter of ZEC’s volume on Solana now runs through pairs like this. On 22 Sep Messari data noted Solana was the third largest venue for spot ZEC that day.
This is ZEC bridged to Solana via NEAR, the same asset Raydium listed last October. It is a Solana token backed by ZEC, not ZEC on your chain. I’m new to Zcash, so I’ll defer to you on what that means for privacy.
About half of the ZEC paid out is still sitting in wallets that had never held ZEC six weeks ago.
It’s a memecoin. It’s not a privacy product and I won’t pretend otherwise. What it has done is put ZEC in a lot of new hands.
Now what
38,000 wallets received ZEC without ever deciding to buy ZEC. They hold it and they see the name every day, and right now nothing on the Zcash side is catching them. If you could put one thing in front of them, what would it be? A wallet, a guide etc? Through our owned channels we can reach some of these holders, and I’d rather point them somewhere this community stands behind than guess.
If anyone wants the data, the queries are public on Dune and happy to also share the SQL.
Best place to start is on ZECHUB all the info they would need to get started id there. I’m the founder of Nozy Wallet if they need a good privacy wallet Nozy, but they would need to start a Zebrad node up. For max privacy on the ZecHub page its a pick a wallet they can pick from any of those they like.
Welcome to Zcash my PFP is apart of an SOL meme project called PBJ.
Hi, @bentertainer ! Thanks for telling us about this and offering to show the new ZEC holders something. I would second @Lowo88’s suggestion of ZecHub (https://zechub.wiki/). It’s got comprehensive information, it has stood the test of time, it’s newbie-friendly, and just friendly, and it’s operated by a DAO that is independent of any company or foundation.
I would recommend those users that have stacked some paper ZEC (no offense) that want to Hodl for some time move their ZEC to native and get a wallet that will allow them to shield their funds. They will be amazed at how easy it is to use Zcash and stay private. Holding ZEC in a shielded pool for awhile is the best way to help ensure maximum privacy.
Several wallets like ZODL, ZKool, Nozy, Cake, Zingo feature auto-shielding, swaps to other coins via Near and even the ability to buy stuff with Zcash at major retailers like Chipotle and GameStop (via Flexa).
Not that holding a ZEC pegged token is a bad thing , it’s just not taking advantage of the biggest feature of Zcash: Privacy.
We are soon publishing an atomic swap primitive with shielded Zcash (no adaptor signatures, purely noninteractive) that would allow smart contracts to natively transact with shielded Zcash, such as allowing anyone to fulfill a (wrapped) ZEC to native ZEC order trustlessly, or accepting native ZEC to a treasury and trustlessly minting wrapped ZEC without validators (take that Red Bridge). It is for Ethereum only but we hope that we can port it on Solana too someday lol
(Announcement coming very soon, we have been diligently working on it for several weeks now)
Thanks all, this is exactly what I was hoping for. Awesome to see such helpful messages. ZecHub it is.
Reading the replies together, the page for these new holders practically writes itself: Shawn’s pitch (you already have paper ZEC, now go get the part that makes it Zcash), the wallet list, and ZecHub’s pick-a-wallet page.
If something like this lands on ZecHub, from the people who’ve been doing this for years, I can amplify and get this in front of the growing number of holders. Happy to share any data behind the numbers with whoever wants to take the lead on this. Coming from this community it’ll be trusted; coming from a Solana DEX it wouldn’t be, and probably shouldn’t be.
@strahncryptography the wrapped-to-native atomic swap is the piece I didn’t know existed. Even Ethereum-first, it’s the real answer to the “none of it is shielded” caveat. Please update here when that gets announced
on my side, I can then share the numbers updated here, including how many of the 38,000+ move.
Sure, will do! If Raydium will be interested in potentially launching the Solana alternative, we’ll- actually, I think Zcash Foundation will be more interested in that if it ever comes to it, but I will notify you haha. Here or email? Mine is avi@strahn.xyz
Hi! One approach is to connect users with their local communities and show them their options. We have various languages and channels. Below is a potential data hierarchy for the introduction; we also have Superteams as partners we can collaborate with.
hey @common1, i just ran the onchain numbers (Dune, as of Sep 24)
86k unique wallets have received ZEC from trading tokens paired with ZEC (since early September when pairing was enabled). ~9,400 ZEC (~$11M) in total paid out.
39k of those wallets had never held ZEC on Solana before.
of those 39k first-time holders, 62% still hold ZEC today majority of which have never sold or moved a single ZEC. as a group they now hold more than half the ZEC they received, so it seems some are buying more
across all 86k wallets: 53% still hold ZEC.
bridging: basically none. burns from these wallets total 78 ZEC, and the outbound transfers go to DEX pools and a few large wallets, not to a bridge. the ZEC that stays, stays on Solana
Seems based on the above, a guide on ZecHub could be helpful to point this community to. I’ve set up a team on the platform in order to post a bounty for this, but still awaiting verification for it. It seems 3 admins need to first sign off. hopefully it comes in soon. I’ll keep you guys updated here!
, it’s just not taking advantage of the biggest feature of Zcash: Privacy.