First MGRC grants, mobile wallets?

Grants
#1

The Zcash Foundation announced they aren’t making anymore grants this year. This means that my favorite Zcash wallet, Zec Wallet, isn’t being funded right now. This seems very suboptimal to me, given how important everyone knows getting Zcash shielded transactions onto mobile wallets is.

Here’s an idea I would like the @MGRC to consider: how about making a couple small grants right now, to mobile wallets devs to keep it going even before the next dev fund officially starts. This would require a sort of IOU between MGRC and the Zcash Foundation, since the grant would have to come out of Zcash Foundation funds right now, since MGRC funds don’t currently exist.

What do others think about this? I love having and iOS app to spend shielded zec, but it is unfunded right now and isn’t being updated with new features. I’d also like to suggest small grants right now to other mobile wallets such at Nighthawk.

This could be a great first MGRC grant. It would be small but high impact, and probably something that a lot of users would really appreciate. I hope there will be bigger MGRC grants for mobile wallets in the future, but this seems like a no-brainer, low risk big reward grant.

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#2

I don’t think this would be compatible with the way 1014 was written:

These funds MUST only be used to issue Major Grants to external parties that are independent of ZF.

That simply doesn’t allow for the possibility to use MGRC funds to pay a debt to ZF, even if that debt was to forward fund a grant. The community has been very clear about the interpretation of that line.

On a wider point, the MGRC is still in very early days - we’ve established communication channels, but we still have to discuss internal process and the criteria for grant funding - it is simply too early for us to be making grant decisions. I would not be comfortable approving any grant for any work until that process is defined and underway.

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#3

@aristarchus - Do we know what they need and what they’d use the funds for?

Gitcoin is busy working on community funding support with ZEC using matching funds already set aside. I can’t speak to their internal timeline but we are working toward one along with them. It might be ready much sooner than the MGRC. Maybe that is a better shorter term option?

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#4

I’d just like to see regular updates to the iOS app for basic features like supporting multiple addresses, an address book, the option of running your own lite client server. My understanding is that development has stopped because the Zcash foundation funding stopped when they decided to stop all further grants this year.

Edit: to be completely clear, I did reach out to ZecWallet and was told that development has stopped because the Zcash Foundation funding stopped.

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#5

+1 on exactly what Sarah said.

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#6

Thought ZF recently provided funds for more ZECwallet lightwalletd infrstructure, so funding isn’t completely frozen.

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#7

I understand it is still early days. I hope whatever rules you set down let you be flexible and agile in the future. I’d like you guys to be able to spot stuff like this and jump in to make things happen.

For huge major grants moving slow is best; this would have been a low risk small grant where it’s ok to move fast imho.

#8

Hmm, Didn’t know that.

#9

Maybe an emergency thing 'cos it broke, I chatted with ZF about Zonkey & told funding was frozen until MGRC was running.

Funding development is also different to fixing broken stuff, so yeah, we should prob consider it frozen.

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#10

Maybe a MGRC grant isn’t a solution (though I still think it could be!). But there is a problem that ZecWallet development was paused. I think most of us use it and want it to keep moving along?

I think paying an IOU for a major grant is consistent with this? It’s definitely consistent with the spirit of the ZIP.

1 Like
#11

ZecWallet development is paused right now, since the foundation has paused grants, waiting for MGRC to be constituted.

However, the foundation (specifically @antonie) was generous enough to make an exception for a small emergency grant to Zecwallet to beef up our light client infra. Zecwallet usage, especially on mobile, has grown significantly, beyond our original estimates, which is causing stress on the Infra, which caused an outage last week.

This emergency grant will help us beef up our cloud infra.

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#12

Why are ZF grants paused? @amiller

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#13

The problem is technically you’d have to pay ZF money to cover the IOU which you’re not supposed to do.

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#14

I believe we spent our grant budget for the year.

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#15

correct. Some details:

While the Foundation has paid out around $300,000 in grants, it has committed the entire annual grant allocation of $500,000, to be paid out upon the completion of each proposal’s milestones. Here are grant funding details.

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#16

Ok. That makes sense and I understand the Zcash Foundation wanting to stick to the budget.

We still have a problem that the only functional shielded iOS wallet is stagnating without new features being added, due to lack of funding…

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#17

If we want to crowdfund how would we do it? via gitcoin?

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#18

Gitcoin is probably best.

Also congrats to @adityapk00 on needing to buy more servers that’s a very good sign for usage.

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#19

Without good wallets there won’t be more money for next year either. These wallets are why Zcash exists. If it isn’t much more it should be allocated this year and taken out of next year’s budget- next year’s budget less the funding. Then they won’t lose 3 months of development. I understand not wanting to break the budget but these are very important.

1 Like
#20

FYI Not sure what that announcement was all about

Upgrade Zecwallet Cloud Infra The team was awarded $5,000 in ZEC as an initial payout on Sep 24th, 2020, 9:21 pm.
https://grants.zfnd.org/proposals/1484976412-upgrade-zecwallets-lite-client-infra