# December 4, 2020 - weekly forum update

**URL:** <https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/december-4-2020-weekly-forum-update/37898>\
**Category:** Weekly Forum Updates\
**Created:** [December 4, 2020, 8:39pm UTC](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/december-4-2020-weekly-forum-update/37898 "2020-12-04T20:39:46Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![elenita](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/zcash/user_avatar/forum.zcashcommunity.com/elenita/32/14604_2.png) [@elenita](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/u/elenita)\
**Post date:** [December 4, 2020, 8:39pm UTC](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/december-4-2020-weekly-forum-update/37898/1 "2020-12-04T20:39:46Z")

</div>

❄☃❄☃❄☃❄☃❄☃❄☃❄☃❄☃

Here are the updates from this week.

- “[Zcash has given me hope](https://twitter.com/alchemyDC/status/1334879306296778756/photo/1) for a non-authoritarian financial future…”
- Next week, [Coinbase Pro will add](https://blog.coinbase.com/coinbase-pro-to-support-additional-order-books-2da72446557f)a ZEC/USD order book.
- [Unstoppable](https://t.co/Ki5LXVAH8E?amp=1) is now available on iOS.
- Josh and Dodger contributed to the Blockchain Association’s paper [Self-Hosted Wallets and the Future of Free Societies](https://theblockchainassociation.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Self-Hosted-Wallets-and-the-Future-of-Free-Societies.pdf).
- Don’t miss the latest ECC blogs:
  - @daira explains [Pasta Curves for Halo 2](https://electriccoin.co/blog/the-pasta-curves-for-halo-2-and-beyond/), a new cycle of elliptic curves.
  - @owocki reflects on the[first Zcash Gitcoin Grant round](https://electriccoin.co/blog/zcash-gitcoin-grants-round-1-retrospective/) and how to improve future iterations.
  - @ASerrano published a [2020 recap](https://electriccoin.co/blog/the-zcash-ecosystem-a-2020-recap/) of all the growth in the Zcash ecosystem.

- ZF published two posts recently:
  - [Target metrics and KPIs for MGRC](https://www.zfnd.org/blog/target-metrics-and-key-performance-indicators-for-the-mgrc/)
  - [ZF’s operational support to MGRC](https://www.zfnd.org/blog/operational-support-to-the-mgrc/)

**Mark your [calendars](https://electriccoin.co/events/),**

- **Mon, 12/7** - ECC’s CTO, Nathan Wilcox will be on a panel, “Digital Privacy in Crypto’’ during [LaBITconf](https://labitconf.com) with Rocelo Lopez (Trust Wallet) and Claudia Diaz (Privacy Expert). The panel is moderated by Alena Vranova. The panel will take place at 15:05 ART.
- **Tues, 12/15** - ECC Q4 AMA Livestream, we’ll have reps from all of ECC’s teams: Core, Wallet, Engineering, Regulatory, Marketing and Leadership. [Submit questions here](https://app.sli.do/event/kosdujsw/live/questions). [Set a reminder here](https://t.co/fquLLJTaNi?amp=1).

**Community Shout Outs** - Special shoutout to @garethtdavies! Gareth generates our [RPC doc](https://zcash-rpc.github.io/) every release. Shoutout to Herou for a community submitted PR in review #187 on the Android SDK repo.

**DevInfra**

- Updated zcash testnet seeder to Debian 10.

**Core**

- PR submitted to [Arkworks](https://github.com/arkworks-rs) for Pasta curves. Artworks is an ecosystem for developing and programming with zkSNARKs. This will help for broader adoption of Pallas and Vesta.
- Cut PR merge time from 80 mins to 50 mins.
- Progress on Halo 2 include API and crate structure updates to make it easier to understand internal structure of Halo 2 implementation.

**Security**

- Infrastructure improvements.
- PIR PoC work published internally.
- Researching mixnets.

**Wallet**

- Made great progress on the Data Access API. Syncing, send, receive are functional in the demo apps.
- Block explorer changes (now pointing to [blockchair](https://blockchair.com/zcash) instead of [z.cash](https://explorer.z.cash/)).
- Bugs resolved on iOS (#213 leading 0, #220 long press delete, #216 copy address confirmation, #218 reply-to copy).
- Started on user testing to determine baseline time to acquire ZEC.
