This last week, we announced that we raised $25M to fund ZODL and get ZEC in the hands of billions of people.
This isn’t a normal company raise. A diverse coalition of 19 (to date) smart, skilled, and powerful investors has come together to get behind one of the most consequential projects in the world.
It’s divine that we happened to announce on Cypherpunk Day, 33 years after the cypherpunk manifesto was published. The manifesto is coalition building, stating that “people must come together” to build privacy into transactions for an “open society in the electronic age.” We must come together. We cannot do this in small silos.
We have an ambitious mission. We must win. There is no other acceptable outcome.
No one can do this alone. And our new partners are committed to supporting the team with legal, regulatory, commercial, recruiting, and technology support. The ZODL team got a lot larger, and the Zcash community got a lot stronger this week.
It has been our strategy to work with others across the crypto ecosystem to accelerate growth. Zcash had been too small and isolated for too long. That is no longer the case. The number of people writing code, raising awareness, educating, and now funding Zcash work has never been higher.
They are force multipliers, and the proof is in the numbers.
Speaking of force multipliers, Foundry announced it will launch an institutional-grade Zcash mining pool in April. Foundry is the world’s most important Bitcoin mining pool. First Bitcoin, now Zcash.
Here are a few other numbers this week.
Here’s our part for the week:
Zodl (formerly Zashi)
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Tested and released Zodl 3.1.0 with Swap & CrossPay UX improvements.
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Progressed on cross-platform consistency issues, bug fixes, and research spikes focused on future improvements.
Analytics
Zodl iOS
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Unique Installs: 38.7k (+900)
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Total Downloads: 45.5k (+1,100)
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App Store Rating: 4.9★
Zodl Android
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Install Base: 14k (+500)
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Total Installs (incl. Open Beta): 46.2k (+1,300)
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Play Store Rating: 4.22★
Zcash Core
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Reviewed and provided feedback on the architecture document for the new Coinholder Polling mechanism.
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Reviewed and merged the z_getbalances PR.
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Progressed on the Zallet alpha.4 release scope, including adding support for storage and handling of P2SH redeem scripts and z_shieldcoinbase.
Current Priorities
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Review and support for Coinholder Polling mechanism ZIPs.
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Contribution to the NU7 Engineering proposal and related ZIPs.
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Continued focus on the Zallet alpha.4 release scope.
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Finalize iOS SDK/FFI reunification.
Other
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Prepared a MiCA Privacy Deep Dive deck and EU Licensing report for internal analysis and planning.
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Secured a spot to participate in EU/MiCA discussions at EthCC.
“Let us proceed together apace.”
Onward.
