Photographer: Shayan Asgharnia
Hi Zeeps!
“The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.” - Archilochus
In the essay, The Hedgehog and the Fox, Isaiah Berlin used this idea to establish archetypes that describe different types of people in support of his thesis that Tolstoy’s works reflect inner conflict as one who wanted to be a hedgehog but was really a fox.
The fox archetype tends to engage with ideas and pursuits spanning many disciplines, while the hedgehog focuses on one overarching idea or system. Aristotle, James Joyce, and Shakespeare are generally classified as foxes, while Plato, Ayn Rand, and Dostoevsky are considered hedgehogs.
In his book Good to Great, Jim Collins applies this same model to top-performing companies, arguing, "Those who built the good-to-great companies were, to one degree or another, hedgehogs. They used their hedgehog nature to drive toward what we came to call a Hedgehog Concept for their companies. Those who led the comparison companies tended to be foxes, never gaining the clarifying advantage of a Hedgehog Concept, being instead scattered, diffused, and inconsistent.”
Collins uses a Venn diagram of three circles to form his “Hedgehog Concept,” representing capability, passion, and economics to define a concise area of focus. The idea here is that organizations will be in a better position to excel by focusing on one thing.
This year, we at ECC narrowed the focus on our Zcash work. Using Collins’ model, it looks like this:
We can only do so much. We have limited funding, sway within governments, and time (so little time!). And quite frankly, this is a big enough vision. As I’ve mentioned before, cash is disappearing. There is no better option than Zcash for decentralized digital cash. None.
We started with the Zcash protocol but now need to move up the stack to deliver a strong UX that ultimately drives protocol innovation to drive ZEC usage, which is already informing our priorities for the protocol in a virtuous cycle. It’s why we built Zashi and will continue to innovate on delivering privacy-protecting payments.
We have so much more to do Zeeps. We need to scale, payments should feel instant, and UX complexity should be buried. I can’t wait for people worldwide to make private, secure, uncensorable digital payments that “just work.”
Look, I know some of you might have different ideas about Zcash and its purpose. That’s awesome! Voice it, build it, and make it happen!
But with all the things it could be, if we do this one thing that we are uniquely equipped to deliver, we will impact the world for many generations. And to think, you were here as it all began.
The offices were closed for a US holiday, but here is where we focused the rest of this week:
Zashi
- We worked with Coinbase to resolve a Coinbase Connect bug. We should have this out to you soon!
- Working through a sync bug, most likely reorg related
Design
- Updated Figma designs to use the new design system
- Tweaks and final touches for Address Book and Request ZEC flow
- Continued exploring Transaction History and Account screen redesign
- Finalized Settings UI update and the new Integrations screen
- Preparing dark mode version for finalized designs
- Supporting Marketing by preparing designs for promotional sharing
iOS
Unique Installs: 3.02k
Total Downloads: 3.53k
Rating: 4.9 ★
- Finished building a new design system and updated all screens in Zashi to follow the Figma conventions
- Prepared initial testnet build in TestFlight
- Resolved ZIP321 dependency issue (iOS 16.4 deployment target)
- Built the new Integrations screen
- Finished Flexa payment flow and balances update but blocked by bugs in Flexa
- Cleanup of tech debt
Android
Total Install Base: 1.95k
Total Installs (incl. Open Beta): 6.07k
Rating: 4.654 ★
- 1.1.6 Release Update: initial blockers with crash on lower Android API levels resolved, SDK update released, we’re looking into another bug we identified on a release candidate app build. Target to release early next week.
- Finalized new changes for the Dynamic Server Switch: updated SDK PR
- Prepared support for Android 15: SDK PR
- Finalized Transaction Resubmission: SDK PR, started working on the Zashi side implementation
- Merged dependency injection and adopted in Zashi
- Working on shielding UI update and testing
- Made progress on the Flexa integration and reported issues to the Flexa team
Zcash Core
- zcashd deprecation update from Kris from the Arborist call
- Test environment for third parties and release process update
- LAE began an audit of zcashd and spec for NU6
- Implemented a new LB for Tailscale (LWD)
- Two core team members will be at RustConf next week
Other
I’ll be speaking at DevCon in Bangkok in November on why crypto is failing the cypherpunks.
@paulbrigner (now Coinbase and Bootstrap board member), along with Project Glitch, is organizing and hosting the DC Privacy Summit in October. The speaker lineup (including @zooko and me) is incredible, and I’m honored to be a part of it. You can hear more about the event here.
ECC and LAE agreed to restructure the outstanding debt to LAE, which was scheduled for repayment this month.
We have started re-evaluating the design of Z.cash in anticipation of a redesign.
We received an all-clear on the regulatory front with Raise on gift card integration with Zashi and are working through the final terms.
@decentralistdan officially joined us and is off and running!
That’s all of this week!
Hydrated and focused.
Onward.
