Keep in mind my list is not exclusive. I agree with many of @earthrise’s points and some of the already ongoing work in the ecosystem. Also we need to be agile and update these lists on an ongoing basis. By my list as of today with cost estimates in USD:
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[Millions] - A Suite of Native Apps - ZecShielded, ZecTransparent, ZecStorage, ZecChat, ZecChrome, ZecFile, ZecPassword, etc. All have a similar professional look and feel. All are aware of each other and can launch each other and pass data when necessary. This can’t be done without a focus on APIs as mentioned by @earthrise. (Names of apps are placeholders)
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[Millions] - Financial Instruments - Add support for native financial instruments. QEDIT is already exploring “options” (i.e. atomic swaps). Withstanding a review of how options pan out we should consider what it would take to support other financial instruments like futures.
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[Millions] - Research and Feasibility Work - Zcash still needs to solve big problems (e.g. scalability). Continue this work. Zcash should also actively explore other forms of consensus. Hierarchical consensus is one form of consensus that might be a good model for interacting with transaction aggregation but not the only one. We should continue reach out to experts outside Zcash on these issues.
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[Millions] - Pay for Verification Key - We should be able to approve transactions with ZKPs other then simply proving we hold a key. Maybe there are other sets of on/off-chain rules that users want to use to approve transactions. Think off-chain smart contracts.
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[Millions] - Proof Of Stake - Energy efficiency is important for future adoption as is the ability to stake.
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[100,000s] - Browser Extensions - Browser extension wallets, apps, explorers. This is a re-mention of the browser parts in (1). Make sure no matter where people are on the web their browser allows them to interact with Zcash.
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[Millions] - Media/Education - Continue investing in education and media. If we want people to care about privacy and what we stand for in the Zcash community we need to broadcast it to the world.
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[Millions] - Zcash Prosperity Fund - We can keep version 1 simple but I believe the ZPF can be a core part of Zcash’s infrastructure and governance into the future.
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[100,000s] - Claims and Attestations - The Zcash memo field has to potential to provide core infrastructure for apps and services using it for sharing data. Unfortunately other then for text messages we barely use it. Zcash needs to decide on some standards for this type of communications (CBOR/CWTs?). We should also reach out to other teams that work on attestations as their day job (e.g. ZKPass).
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[Millions] Improved Regulatory Clarity - Users will expect clearer regulations that provide a better framework for usage and investment.
All these items individually could be delivered to users in under 4 years. The amount we can do in parallel is dependant on our ability to fund. Keep in mind there are pools of money besides the dev fund that can be used for these things (e.g. https://ff-ecc-grants.org/). What are everyone’s thoughts on these priorities?