I’ve been thinking about this clip from Chamath.
Here is the full quote:
“I think that what has to happen are a couple of really important things. The first is that places like you, places like All-In, whoever is willing to just independently call balls and strikes, we have to find a way of growing and thriving.
And I think that while we’re doing a good job, I think it’s still very fragile for independent media. We’re still reliant on large distribution channels like Facebook and Instagram and TikTok and Google and X. And at any point if those fall into the wrong hands or we go back to repressive or regressive regimes around free speech, the ability to talk about an issue, you know, from all angles will disappear.
That’s what we can fix, which is we have to become economically viable to be independent forever. So that even if all of those places at some point say, ‘Hey, you know what? I don’t like what you’re saying,’ you can somehow, you know, get access to satellite internet and start broadcasting your own thoughts independent of everybody else. Now, what does that require? I think what that requires is extreme privacy and a monetary system that can be shielded. Now, that’s a risk today because I think, you know, there’s still a lot of ways in which wrongthink can be punished and wrongthink ebbs and flows depending on who you are.”
It does not matter your political beliefs; there will come a time when they fall out of favor with the mainstream and those in power. Freedom of reasoning and speech is how we bring balance to power. Without it, fresh ideas and alternative perspectives will be crushed by those who feel threatened.
More than a handful of people have told me that I’m wrong to tightly couple free (encrypted) commerce with free speech. But it is all interconnected. If we cannot move resources without restriction, we will lose the ability to speak without restriction. And as Chamath points out, our ability to speak requires “extreme privacy and a monetary system that can be shielded.”
Give up on private, shielded money, and you will lose your voice.
Instead, shield your wealth and protect your voice.
Here’s how we have been bringing balance to power this week:
Zashi
What we did:
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Zashi 2.4.9 released to production with error handling improvements, performance updates, UX/UI updates and bug fixes.
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Built the business logic for disconnecting Keystone hardware wallet.
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Welcomed BostonZcash to the team and started introducing him to our support, product and engineering processes.
What’s up next:
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Focus on Zashi 2.4.10 with more improvements and bug fixes for user-reported issues.
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Build a prototype for Maya DEX integration for internal testing.
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Finalize open designs for the Duress/Decoy Wallet feature and prepare it for review.
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Continue updating engineering processes to create predictable, scalable workflows and improve/streamline cross-functional collaboration between teams.
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Plan Hacker House for January.
iOS Analytics
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Unique Installs: 32.3k (1.7k increase)
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Total Downloads: 37.2k (2k increase)
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AppStore Rating: 4.9* (unchanged)
Android Analytics
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Total Install Base: 16.2k (1.3k increase)
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Total Installs (incl. Open Beta): 38.2k (1.2k increase)
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PlayStore Rating: 4.25* (0.04 decrease)
Swap Volume
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December: $12.5M
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YTD: $315M
Zcash Core
What we did:
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Added PCZT APIs to make it easier to run PCZT workflows with signatures provided by third-party processes in support of the Zypherpunks hackathon bounties.
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Made zcash_client_sqlite-0.19.1 point/hotfix release
(fixes for exchange rate retrieval, SQL alias bug) -
Added transparent transaction data to the light wallet protocol, released v0.4.0.
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Zallet: added deterministic builds, integrated Zaino ChainIndex, discovered blocking bugs in Zaino, and built z_listaccounts, z_getaccount methods.
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Internal refactoring of zcash_client_backend to improve code reuse & add a testing DSL.
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Releasedt out new halo2, Orchard and Sapling releases to support external PCZT signing, and also got the PCZT PRs merged.
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Made substantial progress on the Orchard ZSA review.
What’s up next:
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Continue work on transparent address rotation - a pre-requisite PR.
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Review PRs for P2SH multisig support to Keystone.
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Make lightwalletd updates to adopt zcash/lightwallet-protocol#11
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Finish Qedit Orchard PR Review.
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Add WalletRead::get_received_outputs to fix the receiving/shielded state display issue to zcash_client_backend - PR.
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Continue working on EIP-681 parser & review zcash/librustzcash#1917.
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Zallet: Release Zallet 0.1.0-alpha-3 should happen next week.Build z_shieldcoinbase in Zallet. Next: focus on Zallet 0.1.0-alpha-4 - https://github.com/zcash/wallet/issues/288.
Other:
ECC welcomed two new team members!
BostonZcash is our new Support & Community Manager and will be the bridge between our Zashi users and ECC. He spent the last decade at Lamassu Industries, where he wore many hats: most notably as QA Engineer and Support Manager. He’s been around Zcash for many years, is highly qualified, and is the ideal person for this role.
Dan S. is our new Business Development & Partnerships Manager and in charge of managing all new & existing partnerships and will work closely with me to determine the right strategic partners to align ourselves with as we continue to serve our growing user base. Dan was most recently at Ava Labs for 4 years, where he served as Head of Strategic Partnerships & GTM, leading growth initiatives with top partners building on the Avalanche ecosystem. He brings a contagious energy & passion for privacy, along with a great understanding of the broader crypto industry.
We are interviewing candidates for core engineering. All openings are listed here.
This post from Naval really resonates with me and fits what we’ve built with Zashi.
I haven’t had a chance to read it myself yet, but two of the ECC core members have lauded this article on Zcash and quantum computing.
Over 300 submissions were made to the Zypherpunk hackathon! Good luck, everyone.
ZCG Elections are underway. If you are on ZCAP, please vote. Ballots should be in your inbox, but be aware, some are hitting spam.
From Tim Ferriss, are you bearish or bullish on Zcash?
That’s all for this week!
Empowering balance,
Onward.
