ECC update for March 22

Hi Zeeps,

Say my name!

What’s in a name? A lot, though Shakespeare seems to disagree. So what do I know?

But when a thing’s name and its essence connect, it’s magic. Fireworks. You understand it. It just makes sense.

That’s why I love the name Brave, as in the browser. Here’s what they say about themselves:

"The internet is a sea of ads, hackers, and echo chambers. Big Tech makes huge profits off our data and tells us what’s true and what’s not. Brave is fighting back.

Brave is on a mission to protect your privacy online. We make a suite of internet privacy tools—including our browser and search engine—that shield you from the ads, trackers, and other creepy stuff trying to follow you across the web."

They are fighting against powers that exploit us. Brave.

So are we. We’re in the fight and uncompromisingly brave. Bring 'em on!

It’s no surprise that we’re friends.

This week, Brave announced support for transparent Zcash in their wallet. However, this is only phase one; they are now working on adding shielded support and then integrating it with Filecoin.

We’re building the new system. To do it, these partnerships matter. Full stack. We’re also working with them on other partnerships so ZEC can move.

If you don’t know the whole story of where this work got moving, it goes back to when I met Carlos Acevedo some years ago, who was then a school teacher in the S. Bronx teaching his students financial literacy using Zcash. An unsung hero. We paired up to run several workshops called Crypto in Context. A partnership was formed. Carlos soon joined Brave, and he, James Mudgett, and I met up at Consensus a couple of years back in Austin over BBQ. We conspired and hatched a plan. We would bring Zcash to Brave. All of it.

A vital part of this partnership of this is distribution. Brave is spreading worldwide as people get smarter about their privacy. Today, they boast over 70M MAUs (monthly active users). This partnership will allow all their users to securely and privately store and use their wealth using Zcash.

Oh, icymi, we also did a podcast together, which was released this week. If listening to me talk privacy for 30 minutes is your thing, check it out. If you aren’t following him on Twitter, Luke is fire.

What else?

Zashi

You can pre-order the Zashi wallet on the App Store. As of mid-week, we had about 270 pre-orders. Love it.

As of today, our target date for release remains March 28th. However, we did run into a couple of late showstopper bugs. :grimacing: The team is working hard to resolve the issues in time, but we’ll need to make a call on Monday morning as to whether that date will stick. We’re committed to releasing a great product and will let you know as soon as possible. The target date for the Android release remains the end of April.

The website is about ready, and the teaser video is super fun. All joy and goodness.

And maybe a little stress.

Zcash

As it turns out, shocker!, I have an opinion on a development fund. The community has submitted a couple of interesting proposals. I have an alternative idea that I plan to post very soon and hope will spur some dialogue. Stay tuned.

Our engineering focus has continued to be Zashi and we’ll return to PoS research soon.

Other things

I caught a nasty head cold. That sucked. I need to fix my poor sleeping habits.

We submitted some ideas for presentations at ZconV and await the foundation’s reply.

If you want to know what’s happening in DC across crypto, you won’t want to miss next week’s PGP event (live-streamed here) in partnership with the Blockchain Association, USC, and Coinbase. Yep, we’ve got good friends in high places.

Our forecasting modeling tool is done! Scott did a massive amount of work to tie it into our accounting system and deal with Bootstrap and ECC accounting complexities. It’s an amazingly powerful tool that will help us better manage our treasury, staffing, and expenses.

As I mentioned before, a couple of our team are attending HACs and Real World Crypto to “recharge.” :nerd_face:

We met with Zondax this week to get an update on Ledger. A bug still needs to be resolved, but it’s closer than ever—maybe a month or two out. We’ll be looking into the timeline for adding hardware support to Zashi.

We also shared our Zashi designs with a potential payments rails provider so they can model a recommended UX for integration. I’m excited to see what they come up with.

I engaged with another hardware wallet provider about a Zcash-specific wallet. They’re early, but I want to explore these options for Zcashers fully.

I met with Reserve, a stablecoin provider, about ZSAs support. Unfortunately, regulatory concerns make this a long shot for the time being.

We’re spinning up an ECC Discord for Zashi and community engagement, coming soon.

ZAC invites have been going out and people are signing up.

We’re looking forward to seeing many of you at Consensus next month. If you are going to be there, stay tuned!

Oh, and speaking of names, We’ve settled on the “Z|ECC Summit” to replace the name Zeboot. Thanks to all the previous Zebooters for your collaboration in resolving this important decision. :wink: See you in July!

All for this week. A fun one for Zcashers and Brave.

Say my name!

Onward.

24 Likes

Don’t work with Reserve (RSR). I created the original memes on /biz/ of the founders who worked at a deli before they hopped on the crypto train. Focus on Brave. Never bet against Brendan Eich, imo.

4 Likes

If they have something to do with mobi coin, stay away from them.

1 Like

I highly recommend joining the Zcash Global Discord instead of starting your own.

We have already done the groundwork of building the community there, which is not an easy thing to do. Not to mention maintaining the chat server and community connections. Both require daily commitments from multiple people.

We are Zcashers doing those things for multiple Zcash communities already. We even have a Zashi channel since September 2023.

Community chat servers have been a long-running conversation in our communities. You can read some of it the forums.

The general consensus on the issue of new servers is, “less is more.” As in, less places to go is better for Zcashers to get more news and chat with more people.

I believe it would be a huge misstep for ECC to attempt to create a new place for community engagement.

We’re here doing this already. Use our work. Play with us.

Join us!

Onward, together.

ZcashGlobal_banner_support_20240309

17 Likes

i gotta agree :100:

one place for all Zcash is more efficient than starting to build another discord with not much users at beginning.

less servers with more users is better

7 Likes

Hey @ryan.taylor.

The Zcash Global Discord is amazing. I love the energy and engagement in there and would never try to step on that!

We need a self-administered and moderated place for ECC specific initiatives including Zashi feedback and support, ZAC engagement, Z|ECC participants, etc. If you still have concerns, let me know!

7 Likes

Totally get it.

@vito can we setup a place like this for ECC in Zcash Global?

@joshs could we make that work for you? A solution where everyone can still go to one place and you retain the control that you want in your realm?

4 Likes

In our case, it’s not just a Zcash thing. We need to think about ECC having a place to engage on ECC-related things. Zashi support, for example, is a big one.

I also don’t fully understand the implications. For example, can a super admin remove all our channels without permission? Will other admins have permissions to private groups?

Cc: @Shawn

2 Likes

ok now i get it you need to keep some stuff just for ECC also that nobody else could see.

then maybe you could use the discord that Zashi secret beta feedback is given on? and jsut build on that. since it has some users already.

and then bridge the Zashi wallet channel from ECC discord to Zcash Global Zashi channel so that both have same content.

3 Likes

I like the way @zerodartz proposed. We can get the best of both worlds, if you build a new space and we make some new spaces for you in Zcash Global. That way, your team will be going to two places but the Zcashers aren’t required to. Maybe we can bridge Discord <> Discord, idk

I’m not entirely clear on Discord permissions and roles.

ps. Some Discord admins and mods are meeting to discuss this and clean the Zcash Global server on Fridays, the hour before the Lounge. DM me if you want to join those.

4 Likes

The super admin (server owner) can see and manage all users/invites/channels, etc… you can also set it up so there are co-owners of a server. The super admin can create and see all public/private channels (but not private messages/DMs) because they have the ability to add and remove users from those channels, set roles, and manage server users.

The super admin can also make lesser admin roles (like mods) that have limited abilities to see certain channels. For example a basic member joins and sees a basic set of channels and after they join a mod or admin can add additional roles to that user which will allow them to see certain private channels. By managing roles you can manage what users can do and see.

I love the Zcash Global Discord too @ryan.taylor :zebra:

The only thing against it (and not really a negative overall!) is just that it’s got soo many channels, so many options. If you’re not a power Discord user it can be overwhelming.

Since ECC wants to have a Discord primarily focusing on Zashi support and a few other ECC specific things then it makes sense to have a separate Discord with a minimal number of channels to make it easier for them to manage and gather feedback.

Plus, since it’s Discord it’s not difficult to bridge a few of the channels between ECC ↔ Global Zcash servers if desired.

Initially spinning something up to coincide with the Zashi launch (next week!) and focused on Zashi is the goal to help Andrea and the core team get the ball rolling and support Zashi users.

As Josh and team get more comfortable with running a Discord ECC can add more channels and functionality for things like ZAC, bridges, private channels, etc…

6 Likes

:100:

This is precisely why we (@vito @zerodartz and i) started meeting on Fridays. It’s already much better than it was at the beginning of this month but there’s still a lot to be done.

Can you join us on Friday at 15 UTC and give us a hand?

Overall, my advice is to meet people where they are, first, and then invite them to a new place. Maintaining the expectation that a small portion of folks who are invited will join.

4 Likes

Unfortunately that time is right in the middle of my professional day job, and my other hours are committed to working with the ECC, but honestly I don’t see many real issues with the Zcash Global server that I could help out with other what you guys are already doing. I would suggest maybe pairing down channels if they don’t get much use, but other than that, keep on keeping on. :zebra::zebra:

ECC/Zashi currently has the private, invite only Beta discord running with only 62 participants. The idea is to migrate that to a open-invite public facing version for Zashi launch. Adding more Zashi specific support channels, custom ECC branding / welcome, rules, onboarding, spam controls, etc…

Like any product launch (in this case Zashi) it’s extremely important to new users to get fast support and provide feedback to the core team. @andrea will be managing the team interactions and the team will be using the feedback to open and resolve issues on GitHub.

Eventually the ECC Discord can be a broader community engagement tool as @joshs mentioned, but in the short term Zashi is the focus.

8 Likes

Honestly, it just doesn’t feel right.

This “community engagement” thing is when individuals in an org engage with (hang out with) one or several of their communities. Speaking for myself, this feels more like ECC is asking “The Community” to engage with it. Yes, it. Not the people who work for ECC but the company entity. That’s a different thing.

My fear is that the result will be a lot of time and energy spent by your team, ineffective results wrt your intended goal and another stale Zcash Discord server. Ugh :speak_no_evil: I hate being negative in this forum and this message is totally coming across like that.

Let us know if you need any help from the community side of your engagements while preparing for your big launch! :tada:

Of course, you’ve got my support in whatever you decide to do. @joshs already knows that and I’m sure most of our communities do, too :grin: Me and my big mouth.

7 Likes

I support this! The Zcash Global Discord server sounds like the most logical home to Zashi

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If its purpose is for Zashi and ECC, should make a fresh server. If its for community building, you should create a channel ( sub server ) in Zcash Global. It’s about priorities.

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Thanks @ryan.taylor.

Of all the things in the updates, I didn’t expect this to be the most controversial. :slightly_smiling_face:

I hear you and it gave me pause to reconsider, but I think ECC needs to have its own infrastructure to support the products we release.

If it turns out I’m wrong, we’ll change.

5 Likes

Your updates are always hot and refreshing :fire: There’s never anything to take issue with :heart:
yet :wink:

I made this mistake last year with the ZF AV Club Discord server and our switch to Zcash Global in October wasn’t great, even for a group as small and new as our little club.

Carry on with your badass team :zcash:

Ever onward. Always together!
:zebra: :zebra: :zebra:

note to reader: Come hangout with Zcash Global discord.gg/zcash!

7 Likes

Great, this could be a great news!