Coming Home Carrying My Shield, Or On It

Ecosystem Updates
1

Hey folks, I’ve been informed that the Zcashd deprecation project will block on ZSAs.

It’s inappropriate to label the effort “Zcashd Deprecation” Z3 (Zallet-Zaino-Zebra) since that’s not what it is.

It seems it’s Z4 ZSAs-Zallet-Zaino-Zebra.

I’m a fan of speaking as clearly as possible.

ZSAs are not a feature of Zcashd, therefore adding them to Zebra is not necessary to replace Zcashd.

Anyone who’s reading this understands that I believe that this is a myopic strategy that flies in the face of standard engineering principles.

In particular, this is classic feature-creep. We’ll all pay for the delay.

I’ve also been told that “the community” prefers this blockage.

That’s not the impression I get from this sample of the community.

I am also told that Wrapped USD, “zUSD”? Is the primary use-case that’s motivating this. I am also told that this use case is very appealing because it allows holders of USD to leverage (some of) the privacy features of Zcash in a “compliant” way.

The most disappointing aspect of this conversation is how often I am told by persons in positions of trust (not authority, but TRUST) that I should shut-up.

To me that’s not a very convincing argument. Usually when I politely ask:

Why is something true?

And I am told to sit down.. the meaning is that the person I am asking is ashamed of themselves. This impression is bolstered by my private conversations in which people who publicly are quite docile on the topic, tell me that they “personally” or “privately” aren’t in favor of blocking on ZSAs.

Altogether.. I choose to have the emotional fortitude, and principled position to continue to ask “Why?”

If me asking “Why?” annoys you.. or saps your will to implement ZSAs.. maybe that’s because you’re choosing to ignore a more fundamental (to you) “Why”.

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I’d love to know more about this. First, what’s a position of “trust”, and who is telling you to shut up?

3

Maybe improving the alternative ( zebra ) is sufficient, and deprecation will come naturally from zebra being better?

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4

I’m unclear on what exactly you are telling us.

Can you better define what “block on ZSAs” is doing in layman/practical terms?

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6

Where did you get the impression that this document (which I wrote) says that Zcashd deprecation blocks on ZSAs? It doesn’t.

The document just says that ECC Core Team is doing work on both in the next quarter, which is completely accurate. They will be done in parallel (along with other things like the implementation of memo bundles), and they have to be done in parallel.

Also note that the document only talks about what ECC Core Team is doing. Zingo Labs, ZF, Qedit, etc. are free to make their own prioritization decisions.

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7

From what I’ve seen no one is telling you to shut up. People are simply disagreeing with you on ZSA prioritization and telling you that is a waste of time trying to litigate other orgs’ and people’s prioritizations, and you are painting this as censorship.

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(*This is a meme and not a censorship attempt)

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8

You’re confused.

I am trying to make Zcashd Deprecation happen.

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It is also happening; indeed, ZSAs can’t happen without it.

Would it be possible for zcashd deprecation to happen slightly faster if we were not simultaneously working on ZSA productionization? Perhaps, but IMO the delta you’re talking about is a matter of some small number of weeks in the overall schedule, and so the difference is just not even worth litigating.

I’m happy to provide a guarantee that we will not block the Zallet production release on ZSA readiness, if that helps; I want Zallet in users’ hands as soon as possible, and that means that V6 transaction integration, etc. isn’t required for the initial Zallet release.

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