Brainstorm of potential grant concepts/ideas

[decentralistdan]

Let’s brainstorm some ideas of potential grant applications that the community & MGRC candidates would like to see…

I’ll start us off:

-BTCpayserver “fork” for Zcash merchants/users

-a focus on Bolt Labs zkchannels

-a focus on Agoric smart contracts on Zcash

-a “fork” of Coinkite’s Coldcard for a Zcash only hardware wallet?
Should MGRC be open to HW grants in general?

-something like Unchained Capital’s open source multisig project

-Mixnet work, maybe something like @Mikerah’s work or integration with Nym?

-I think for larger grants for a team, I like the idea of Agoric or Thesis applying.

Just some random ideas, not comprehensive but I feel gives a good look into some of my thoughts…

[Mikerah]

Correction: I don’t work with Nym. We are competing in the mixnet area but I personally don’t believe in the the whole “1 ACN to rule them all” narrative that I think Nym is going for.

I do think the the MGRC should fund competing approaches for mixnet integration though.

More generally, I think the MGRC is a great place to get competing teams in an area to work on something for Zcash. Even though the Zfnd publicly states that they are interested in financial privacy and whatnot, it seems like they block proposals that the development team personally doesn’t like. @harryhalpin mentioned on the livestream that he got his ZCAP invite revoked because @hdevalence didn’t like his network proposals (whatever those were. possibly Nym related).

Personally, I would love to write up a proper grant proposal for the MGRC and see @harryhalpin’s team at Nym do the same and see how we fare against a different set of people. If we both suck, then that’s that. If we are both good enough, then the MGRC should make bets on who will most likely be the most successful and show that through the sizes of the grants + mentorship they offer to each team.

[decentralistdan]

Thanks for the reply & I may not have made it clear enough but I meant your mixnet work or Nyms. Not that you work with Nym,as I am aware of hashcloak.

But I find your thoughts on funding competing teams working on a specific thing for Zcash interesting & something I hadn’t considered. This could absolutely be the best way to get something completed both efficiently & properly. Healthy competition.

I wonder if some would see funding two teams with the same goal as a not so great way of spending funds but in my opinion if the MGRC see something like mixnet work for example as very important, then it would make sense to allocate funds to both teams as a way to increase the chance of success.

This also makes me think about the potential collaboration of two “competing” teams? Not sure how that could work but…

I look forward to reading your grant proposal if elected.

[Mikerah]

I woke up and noticed that I misread that. You clearly used “or”. But I don’t see why both can’t be funded, if that’s what the inaugural MGRC sees as useful.

[zooko]

Interesting idea about funding competing, alternative projects! I love competition when it is collegial — you learn from each other, you bring out the best in each other, and you even help each other when doing so is going to lead to a win/win for everyone.

However, we should protect a strong norm in the Zcash community that if you’re slagging on others, insinuating that they are not competent or are not good people, then what you are doing is harmful to the community and to the mission and you need to learn to behave better or else you’ll be shunned.

The moderation style on this forum, as led by Shawn/mineZcash setting the tone, has been good about this.

[Yugo]

@zooko

However, we should protect a strong norm in the Zcash community that if you’re slagging on others, insinuating that they are not competent or are not good people, then what you are doing is harmful to the community and to the mission and you need to learn to behave better or else you’ll be shunned.

So when a staff member calls out people for concern trolling that’s acceptable but when the community (rightfully) questions competency, intent, or a developed plan that deserves being shunned? I’d like to be able to disagree with folks and not be labeled as malicious.

Edit: I just realized that none of this dialogue will change anything. I’m out.

[jmsjsph]

@Yugo

questions competency, intent, or a developed plan

From my own experience, I think the best way to handle this is to provide evidence before suggesting any malevolence, and to shy away from cornering individuals in public. Otherwise, we create an unwelcoming, echoey atmosphere that is void of in-depth discussion.

[freemancrypto]

I think zooko is just trying to say to not be D-bag when going about giving critical but insightful input.

[jmsjsph]

I like the call to integrate components from development partners, especially to flesh out useful apps for users. I’m still crazy about z-address directories for their potential to make zapps more friendly without the need to log-in to find contacts.

With all the hype surrounding MGRC, I like to wonder which grants are more appropriate from which devfunding entities? ECC, ZF and MGRC must all allocate devfunds…

@jmsjsph

Any specific dream teams you’d like to hire?

Perhaps Naomi Brockwell’s Cointree would safely embrace zero addresses towards building their decentralized, open-source address directory. If integrated by other dapps, this could give cybercoin newcomers immediate access to familiar identities via non-sensitive addresses that leave no trace!

[decentralistdan]

what are everyone’s thoughts on the bcoin team as a viable grant applicant?

they already have a suite of full node implementations for BTC, BCH & LTC

would having another team working on libraries &/or a full node implementation be seen as beneficial to the Zcash ecosystem?

bcoin: Enterprise-level Bitcoin and Blockchain libraries.