Why is it 4x the cost of the one that got rejected 2 months ago?
4 Likes
Pros:
- Many users have been asking for Full support of Zcash on Ledger
- Development from Ledger itself ensures that it will pass their own requirements
- Retroactive grant limits our risk exposure
Cons:
- Not much technical details given regarding the implementation. Is it based on librustzcash? How big will the resulting app be? Will it be on the main store or relegated to dev? Is the development restarting from scratch or is it reusing prior work (Zondax or mine)? Is it going to be reviewed by Zcash protocol experts? Is it going to be compatible with Zip-32? etc.
- The company does not have a good track record of delivering quality and ontime apps for Zcash. How is it going to be different this time? To be honest, I think they need to build some trust first.
- The price is high.
IMO, if the grant is approved it is paramount that its payment is retroactive and subject to clear quality of deliverables. Technically, the previous grant worked, but it used a custom version of ZecWallet that is obsolete and only supported Sapling. I suspect it wasn’t used by many (or even any).
13 Likes
Hello @dismad ,
We indeed plan to focus on zaino as it will most likely support all lightwalletd functionalities.
Yes it does. Each application update will undergo a security audit from a trusted third party lab. I can’t really disclose the cost, and the time required for the audit depends on the size of the update but they usually take 1 or 2 weeks.
It will depend on the concrete impacts for both Ledger Live integration and the device app, but we’ll closely monitor upcoming network upgrades to anticipate changes early and minimize any delays.
4 Likes
Hello @hanh ,
To answer some of your questions:
We don’t expect app size to be a blocker, mainly because the Nano S is no longer a constraint.
The app will be released in My Ledger as a standard app, not under developer mode as we plan to provide a great user experience with Ledger Live and the app.
The app is being rewritten to meet current Ledger SDK standards, but we plan to reuse learnings from Zondax’s earlier app and your prior work.
Compatibility with ZIP-32 is part of the plan, and we’re keen to collaborate with Zcash protocol experts throughout the specification and development phases. We are already in contact with ECC, notably around PCZT, to coordinate on interoperability and transaction construction workflows for upcoming protocol requirements.
10 Likes
a. On the market, Zcash is the only public blockchain with zero-knowledge proofs. Even though Ledger ignored it for years, Zcash has survived and its value continues to grow.
b. There are many hardware wallets on the market, and new ones will keep coming. Wallets are consumables compared to blockchains — they are highly replaceable and mostly compatible (product A, B, C, D, etc.).
This asking price makes no sense. If $100,000 is acceptable, then do it; or, just forget it.
In the future, wallet X, Y, Z, Regdel… and more hardware wallets will support Zcash UA/orchard anyway.
While they haven’t replied to you directly, I wouldn’t give too much hope into them maintaining it without further funding:
If I’m understanding this correctly, unless funded, they’re deprecating ZEC altogether. If they’re not supporting T-addresses for free, they’re not going to do it with Shielded/UA either. So we can expect that $100k maintenance fee to be a minimum yearly payment (+ extra, I’m assuming ZSA support is going to be another hefty grant).
Ultimately, “we” (ZCG) need to decide whether access to another provider of shielded cold storage is worth the (re-occurring) cost.
3 Likes
Hello Zcash fam, my name is Ariel, and I am the Partnerships Manager for Ledger in Brazil. I met @michae2xl a few months ago, and since then, he has been showing me what Ledger has been doing globally with Zcash.
In one of our conversations, we thought about designing a campaign for co-branded Ledgers with Zcash. Ledger does a few collabs, and we recently launched the Ledger Flex Solana in partnership with some communities from that ecosystem, with very interesting incentives for holders. In this link, you can check out other collabs: Ledger collaborations | Ledger
Initially, since we are located in Brazil, we talked about something more local, but if this is of interest to you, we can expand this project to a global level.
To produce these custom Ledgers, there is a cost that varies according to the model and quantity.
The positive point is that the amount paid would be a resale price, and the profit from the sales would go to Zcash.
To do a campaign similar to the Flex Solana one, which besides the device also has a custom case and box, is available for purchase on the website, and has posts on Ledger’s official pages, we would need a minimum of 500 units.
It is now possible to do smaller tests in simpler formats starting from 100 units of Nanos or 50 units of the touch devices.
This week I will meet with @michae2xl to present more details about the operational costs, potential earnings, and activations that can be done.
7 Likes
With the release of zashi, the zcash community tends to have some opinionated stances on default privacy. This flagship wallet requires any spends to be shielded. I am a fan of this feature, and it seems to be popular in the community as well. Would Ledger Live share this preference for shielded spends? Even if not, at least a pop-up to notify the user that they are spending transparent funds on any spend they are making to ensure no accidental mishaps occur. Open to other ideas as well, but I haven’t seen anyone speak to this yet.
5 Likes
After extensive discussions with ZCG, FPF recommends that Ledger submit a formal grant application via GitHub to eliminate any ambiguity regarding the commitments of either party. While we value the good-faith conversations to date, following the established process is the only way to ensure clarity now and in the future.
FPF recommends:
-
Grant submission: Ledger should submit a grant application consistent with the proposal in this thread. The grant will be single milestone, no payment will be made until all deliverables are completed by Ledger and reviewed and approved by ZCG (as currently proposed).
-
Regular updates: Ledger should provide updates via the Forum in line with other approved grantees.
-
Hedging: FPF will hedge the value of the grant as per our standard process.
This approach will ensure the community is informed on Ledger’s progress, the terms and conditions governing the grant and the work to be completed are clear, and the expectations, deliverables, and commitments are clearly established from the outset.
6 Likes
What does this mean? It has already been decided to approve?
No, I can see how that would be confusing. IF ZCG approves the submitted grant then FPF would hedge as per standard process. As it currently stands, Ledger hasn’t submitted the grant for official review and ZCG hasn’t approved or rejected.
Just want to express my opinion that 10000 ZEC for a 1-year hardware wallet support, from a company that has been historically frustrating for ZEC users, is not worth it.
I understand there might be Ledger-using whales out there or casual Ledger users who just want some exposure to ZEC who might want this proposal funded. But, I prefer the 10000 ZEC to go for another cause, like Protonmail support for example?
2 Likes
What’s even “Protonmail support”. Either way, email is legacy, why would we want to go there.
1 Like
Everything in crypto is frustrating if you aren’t buying BTC. It’s par for the course. This is a good use of funds whether or not you think so because of some historically bad funding (which of course Zcash has been notoriously good at doing). Getting people to migrate their cold funds to the shielded pool would be a huge win.
1 Like
Zcash has been frustrating, yes. It does not negate the fact Ledger the company has been disappointing for ZEC users. If they could not get Transparent ZEC working well for years, what make you think they can get it right for Shielded ZEC this time?
Again, ZCG can decide on their own but I also can express my opinion that 10k ZEC is too much for a 1 year support for ZEC on Ledger (a company with for profit products that has been disappointing for years).
1 Like
They were using a half-baked solution based on a wallet that was unmaintained. This grant clearly shows that they plan to implement it in a more future-proof way.
Did you express the same sentiment for Zcash media’s grant? And who exactly is Ledger disappointing? Have you used one? Why does they being for-profit change anything?
1 Like
I was close to the whole situation. For years, Ledger knew of the issue and that funds were locked, signaled that it was a priority, but chose not to address it until Binance ran into an issue. As a Zcasher who had funds stuck on one of their devices, I remain frustrated by that both personally and on behalf of Zcashers who were also impacted. I also do not like pay-to-play models. It feels more mercenary than patriot.
That said, many rely on Ledger devices, including many whales/to be whales that may consider them for long term storage if shielded is supported. This is not theoretical. The inclusion of shielded ZEC support as a first class citizen in Ledger live is powerful. Having allies in the fight for shielded self-custody is powerful. And their marketing team is collaborating with us to make a big splash if this is funded. It’d be good reach - good signal, encouraging more people to play with and begin to use Zcash. I’m in support of the grant.
24 Likes
IF and WHEN @CharlesGuillemet submits an offical grant, I support it. Not because of their track record, or virtue signaling, but because I want more options for shielded ZEC. I’ll be honest, my instincts say no because why would this tiger change their stripes? Prove me wrong Ledger. AGAIN, the world is watching.
14 Likes
@CharlesGuillemet One month has passed, have you any updates to share with us? Has an official grant proposal been submitted? It should be a retroactive fund, so did you already start to work on implementation? Can you confirm the timing you proposed in august? Thanks!
1 Like
Here’s the most recent update from a week or so ago:
9 Likes