I am writing this in light of recent discussion on Twitter regarding BLD (Agoric Governance Token) that will be in possession of Bootstrap, the parent non-profit entity of Electric Coin Company.
First objective of this topic is to continue discussion on giving incentives for Shielded Pool usage and adoption[1]. If we are going to do an airdrop for ZEC Holders in Zcash, then it is only sensible to do it in shielded pool. Especially, as the UX are improving significantly with Orchard coming and development of shielded transaction for Hardware Wallet. Second objective is to gather sentiment of such idea and to understand if such idea are feasible technically/legally/socially:
Technically this seems to be feasible, especially with Orchard coming online on mainnet. Also, I would suggest that any technical solution that comes out of this, must also fulfill requirement for better future ZEC Holders vote mechanism, addressing the concerns expressed in the previous ECC ZEC Holder poll[2].
Now, since we want to respect privacy of the participants. I propose that instead of one party deciding which address get how much, how about we make it so that any participant in the airdrop: (1) calculate their proof of ownership by themselves (with zkp) (2) submit the proof to a contract (smart contract on Agoric?) which then (3) decides on how much to give to that particular submitter?
Legally I have no idea. However, other projects have been able to distribute tokens especially through a 501(c)3 like the owner of ECC, Bootstrap.
Socially, I want to start the discussion here. My proposal is for Bootstrap to distribute a portion of BLD for ZEC Holders, based on average ZEC held in Orchard Shielded pool for an agreed-upon period in the future. Example: BLD will be airdropped based on weighted average of ZEC held in Orchard Address between block height 1490000 and 1499999. If this is found to be constrained by compute-power, we can select random snapshots between those block heights. Such as, 1 randomly chosen block for every 10000 blocks between block 1490000 and 1499999.
Two factors remain out of communityâs hand: (1) What will Bootstrap/ECC management do with the BLD in their possession. (2) Will there be a team to develop these kind of features (such as the proof of ownership tool & smart contract on Agoric).
I think itâs a cool idea however there is probably a big privacy issue with a US based 501(c) non-profit entity giving away (airdropping) something of âvalueâ.
Specifically, itâs the same reason Zcash Foundation has to perform KYC for Grants, and that is: Taxes. Even now Agoric is collecting KYC info for anyone that is participating in the incentivised testnet:
Itâs not a insurmountable problem, but it kinda goes against the whole reason for having a shielded pool in the first place: to protect the privacy of itâs users.
Itâs a good problem to solve: Airdropping to ZEC holders. It is a clear value-adding mechanism for $ZEC.
If we keep technical reasons aside, itâs up-to ECC to decide what they want to do with BLD they will receive. However, itâs a good idea for Agoric team to airdrop to other communities for bootstrapping their ecosystem.
If BLD grows a lot then ECC reserves also grows, which is good for Zcash community during bear markets!
as opposed to an airdrop from ECC to shielded pool users, what Iâd personally like to see is someone or some team develop a way to âstakeâ shielded ZEC to earn BLD in a non custodial way. Im not even sure if this is possible butâŚ
Well, I am thinking of a similar concept. Rather than using only one snapshot of ZEC stored in shielded address, I would prefer an average of $ZEC stored in shielded address for a period of time.
Ultimately, this is also interesting as we can use BLD airdrop as a proof of concept for two things: (1) Staking with shielded address and (2) ZSA, using wrapped zBLD to obtain BLD on Agoric.
However, two factors remain out of communityâs hand: (1) What will Bootstrap/ECC management do with the BLD in their possession. (2) Will there be a team to develop these kind of features.
First of all we should understand if ECC is interested to perform the airdrop (reason of my original Twitter). In such case I think there could be the evaluation about the how. Moreover no one is forced to claim anything in case this is generating a privacy leak. We have the optionality of taddresses for many good reasons
Might be hard to demonstrate that for some - for instance Iâve used a few different Z-addresses (not to mention t-addresses), and my most current primary Z-address has only been in use for about 3 weeks. Been holding much longer than that.
In order to do an airdrop the entity or protocol doing the airdrop need to know 1) the destination addresses and 2) the balance of those addresses.
This seems to be the complete opposite of the ethos of the shielded pool(s).
Also, technically, shielded notes are commitments without metadata, so even with snapshots at certain block heights, the entity in charge of the airdrop would still need a viewkey and scanning process to trial decrypt notes in order to get the balance of those addresses that have decided to participate.
This kinda seems like a dead on arrival proposal with a catchy headline. (Until the technical shielded staking problem is solved).
Itâs look like weâre sharing the skin of an unkillable bear here. Discussing how to make an airdrop does not make sense without understanding the ECC position.
It makes sense to discuss what we want in the open. I personally do not care about the airdrop per se, what I care is an incentive mechanism for shielded adoption. Better if we could use it for better governance process.
Also, this is a way to show ECC management what some in the community wants.
Love it or hate it, complying with KYC/AML requirements keeps the people that run the Zcash Foundation and Electric Coin Company from getting in trouble with Uncle Sam.
Thatâs totally gameable. I think thatâs a non-starter. For example, the logic already exists to split notes such that the max value doesnât exceed x. So, someone could have a field day with that if they were motivated enough.
complying with KYC/AML requirements keeps the people that run the Zcash Foundation and Electric Coin Company from getting in trouble with Uncle Sam.
Yes, but for many of us the initial attraction of ZCash was as a coin primarily motivated by financial anonymity. Each concession to KYC/AML (does anyone else hear in their head a chorus of K-Y-C! A-M-L! M-O-U-S-E!) runs counter to our motivation, and decreases the appeal of ZCash.
Iâm not sure thereâs anything that ZCashâs US-based organizers can do about that; but it helps explain why ZCash has lost more and more mindshare over time. "A house divided against itself cannot stand."â˘.
Folks, letâs not get distracted by a tangent at the moment. No one here likes KYC/AML, a failed experiment that does more harm than good but we need to consider that when working with ECC and ZF. I think we all agree with that and letâs move on from this topic.
On 1), as long as you can prove the ownership, you can use any address you want. Nobody needs to know your address other than yourself. We can build a way to get BLD without connecting it to your existing Zcash address. 2) This must be opt-in. No one forces you to reveal the balance. The tally should happen after the period decided for âstakingâ.
Imagination is a wonderful thing, folks. Donât confine your ideas around what has been done in other chains.
Ask not what has been done but what could we do better.
Iâd think that someone claiming an airdrop based on funds they held in the shielded pool would need to âprove the ownershipâ of x amount of ZEC in shielded notes ⌠and the âairdropperâ entity or protocol distributing the share of BLD would need to know and verify that sum. That sounds like a scanning of notes and the airdropper decrypting notes with a viewkey. You canât just magically know the balance of a shielded address unfortunately.
It still seems to me like first, Zcash would need to solve the problem of scalability with shielded stake. For example, It may not be feasible to have say 10,000 people provide viewkeys to be scanned by the airdropper.
If you can prove a transfer without revealing the amount and parties involved, you should be able to prove that you have ownership of something without revealing your wallet address/identity. We are trying to do an airdrop on Zcash here, not on Ethereum. You may have too much assumption based previous airdrops in other chains.
Instead of one party deciding which address get how much, how about we make it so that all people who wants to participate in the airdrop: (1) calculate their proof of ownership by themselves (with zkp) (2) submit the proof to a contract (smart contract on Agoric?) which then (3) decides on how much to give to that particular submitter?
No one party should have the data of all parties involved. Now, Idk if this is a harder version of Yaoâs Millionairesâ problem or I have over-thought too much on this.
