Read Zooko’s letter! A Personal Letter About The Possibility of a New Zcash Dev Fund | by Zooko Wilcox | Medium
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As for me, everything in the letter has already been said many times, why repeat the same thing all the time?
From the letter, which was useful for the community, there was only one thing: working with regulators and going to the leading stock exchanges without getting a pair with the dollar on one. Nobody is interested in hearing that “We put a lot of effort into and we didn’t manage to make a commercially viable product, so we need to work a lot more time and see what happens” investors give money for which the fund and the company live, and the further the less people are willing to buy zcash Why yes because it cannot be applied in real life, it is only on paper good with its technology. I can not think of a single demand scenario, and you? Give the community 5 real semi-coin features for a simple inhabitant and you won’t have to think whether the community will support the continuation of the award or not. And everyone is talking about financing from the block, but what’s the point if the coin costs 1 dollar, what will then work for the idea like your investors?
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From @joshs on Twitter:
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at current market and zcash state any dev fund proposal will get a lot of negative feedback for an obvious reason. number gone down, tremendously. with current dev fund. during bull run even 30% dev fund proposal could pass easily. because number goes up. this is crypto, after all.
from abstract point of view, dev fund is necessary, but with increased accountability and more precise spending targeting from receiving party.
model that exists now proved itself as not viable. and defending to leave things as is, even increasing devfund with current negative roi for coin holders (from their pocket this cut is coming from, not from miners’) is outrageous.
what is even more questionable, that there was zero excuses for awful roi from ecc sid. like “here’s our abstract achievements, we want to continue like that, everything is ok”. maybe not ok? ofc crypto is a venture. there’s no obligations, etc. but i see no point with any extented devfund initiatives without admitting everything that went wrong at first. and propositions how to try to improve. abstract results and new “all in” empty promises are looking pretty ugly and discouraging.
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As a general periodic reminder (emphasis my own):
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fair enough.
but network value is estimated via price. somehow.
then, in my opinion, its pretty hard to reason coinholders to approve continuation of “adoption, education, regulatory engagement and communications” efforts with current state of things. only as a matter of pure lottery err… venture. or charity.
Nobody talks to you about raising the price, everyone says that your efforts should be aimed at attracting investors, who will raise the price through purchases, otherwise what will you do at a price of 1 per coin, or this will not happen? You are an organization that exists at the expense of a tax on the issue of coins, if the issue of coins costs nothing, and there is no money for development, the company has a strange position. 26 places and 66 have already been received, purchases have decreased, all the news is even positive or not perceived or perceived negatively, no plan says after the extension of funding with a further price reduction, investors have already left, new ones are not visible, but the market is falling, but this is a chance to act out positions from other projects.
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“Investors” not “users”?
I like HODLers just fine, but I couldn’t care less about speculators losing money. I don’t object to the existence of speculators, and I feel sorry for them in an abstract way, but I also feel like… anyone who thought the bull market was going to last forever was in for a rude awakening at some point.
I don’t know what to tell a blackjack player who is mad when the house wins, which is how most of these complaints about price come across. That’s the game, and you knew that when you got in! Cryptocurrency markets are not famous for being stable or reliable.
Other people’s ROI is not ZF or ECC’s responsibility. The utility of Zcash is what we focus on (which includes growing the ecosystem, of course).
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I personally agree with everythinhg in your post, but 2 toughts that came into my mind:
I think it’s safe to say that the US$ 50 ZEC price hit the ECC as well with the guard down… Makes me think if there are any scenarios or plans on how to continue if the price for example (for whatever reason) drops again to $50 or even lower to $25, $10, $5? Not talking about speculators or investors here as it’s their risk, but about pure funding developement.
Makes me just thin if creating a crypto currency was the best path at all? I mean there is no currency, neither fiat nor crypto that isn’t a target/victim to speculation, volatile, whatever. Wouldn’t be just creating the tech and selling licenses of such tech better fit providing the ability to have privacy in crypto space (and not limited!) and reaching eventually even more people than a project with a crypto currency which gets the main focus anyway?
That’s just a thought after reading your post to which i fully agree, so don’t get me wrong please.
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People have started using the hashtag #ZcashDevFund on Twitter to discuss the future of Zcash.
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In the scenario where ECC doesn’t get the funds to work on Zcash, I can easily see the company pivoting to contracting for Tezos, Cosmos, etc.
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You wrote investors and not users and talking about speculators? I did not talk about speculators, I talked about investors (the one who bought the coins and holds them, that is, who supported your team, whose money you get in the form of wages). Your thought is understandable, but why is it directed to me?
The user at ZCASH is the recipients of the founders award and the exchange. There are no other users of the coin, as it cannot be received in the form of wages or for free. All who buy it are investors, those who buy for the purpose of extracting profit and selling speculators in the best case.
I spoke about investors (holders) and it was impossible to think differently from my posts.
And now on the topic I support the continuation of funding, but with the clarification on the mission about which you wrote.
The team is not interested in the course of its asset, if the course is lower than necessary, the team switches to other products in the form of contracting, and all the other facts that I received in the form of answers from you, the foundation staff or other officials.
Transparency of which you speak should be in everything. Thank.
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Whoa, slow down. I didn’t say that was decided or definitely going to happen. I said it was a possibility.
Ah, okay, this is probably a language difference. In English, the word “investor” nearly always means that someone is focused on ROI as their main priority. So, for example, I purchase and own Zcash, but I wouldn’t describe myself as an investor.
To be crystal clear about price: Both ZF and ECC are heavily incentivized to want the price to go up. The majority of ZF’s endowment is held in ZEC.
But we want to do it honestly, by making Zcash a worthwhile asset. An asset that should be valuable, rather than an asset that people want to be valuable. The monetary supply is capped; if we can maintain and grow demand, it will be reasonable to expect the price to go up once emission goes down.
But maintaining and growing demand sustainably does not look anything like pumping the price. It looks like improving Zcash until it’s an asset worth buying and using, regardless of whether someone wants ROI. Limited supply will take care of the price once that happens (to the extent that we can predict the future at all in this crazy volatile industry)
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I talked about this all the time in all topics, not pumping the price but increasing the value of the product (the translator is of course guilty but I think that the essence is clear anyway), now everyone writes that the price is not important for the company, it is strange because financing depends on it development, it is necessary to accelerate the adoption of the masses to increase demand, which will increase the price because there is a limited amount of coins, I wrote the same thing about the fact that inflation and emissions are not the same thing, now zcash is subject to inflation (devaluation) that must be fought, in part contributing issue, but then this rule would be for everyone, and other coins grow with a much larger number of coins issued (the price for 1 coin is higher).
I would not only be interested to hear what the company and the fund thinks about this, what is the plan for the extension of funding, what will it do if the price falls further, etc.
I believe that the positive news not only in the technical part but also in the applied one are equally important to the project. It is necessary to disclose the functionality of the coin in the form of real benefit from it and not just what is inherent in the code.
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by the way, compared to many competitors zfnd, ecc have a lot more to show then many competitors. the problem is, this is by far outshadowed with
- initial overhype and overprice. its gone, but it has a track in history and in charts.
- unlucky position with inflation cycle compared to btc. while btc is almost deflating now, zec is inflating. ratio will change post 2020, but crypto is such a fast changing sfere that it isnt safe bet that pow will be much honored post 2020. bitcoin is an unique case. first mover + major network effect + religion.
- 2k19 market situation, when bitcoin was heavily kickstart-pumped with big money and then got immense boost from well known derivative gambling resources, so the altcoins (except new generation of scams) ratios plummeted to the point, that even patient holder/investor starts to question is there still a point to try?
these perception factors build heavy pressure on appreciacion of any decent efforts that ecc/zfnd have succeed.
without mentioned above, from current stage, its still a relatively decent venture and not bad bet to give another try for ecc/zfnd to continue work on zcash. of course with decent changes/improvements in pr/information politics. “we are open and looks honest and ethical and thats enough” - is not viable in aggressive competition in crypto. anyway there’s not much more to lose with this as for now. and upside is pretty big for a post 2020 targets, if zcash will continue to thrive and not will not get orphaned.
but for early non speculative/market making stake/bag holders sunk cost is enormous. so its easy to understand possible retaliation. that is hardly accelerated by salty failed zcash fomo traders.
so which of zips (if any) will win is pretty interesting drama.
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I can help out here! In another thread, I addressed the Zcash Foundation’s roadmap and financial resources: Lack of information about future funding - #12 by sonya (there are links to more details)
It’s playing the long game. That’s why ECC has invested in talking to regulators, for example, and why the team has cultivated relationships with reputable, mainstream exchanges. We want businesses to be able to use Zcash, and that kind of institutional adoption and credibility is key.
See this exchange between Zooko and me on Twitter for another angle: https://twitter.com/sonyasupposedly/status/1157109748493250560
Very good response, and yes it is important for ZCash to grow organically, just as it is of the utmost importance for ZF and ECC to want the price to go up. But what is being done for the demand of ZEC to grow? and what will be different this time around if we choose to renew the dev fund? In the end sure the demand for ZEC grows, but there are heavy hitters out there causing massive sell pressure hijacking the demand curve for themselves. Let’s not try to act noble that nobody here isn’t thinking about future ROI because we both know that isnt the case.
In my opinion, the ROI seekers will be far more motivated to keep holding their coins if the ZEC chart looked healthier than the disaster it currently is at. The public chart everyone gets to see is a clear representation of the market and public’s psychology and sentiment towards the project. And with a dev fund renewal it will only keep on causing that much more pressure to the downside. A healthy looking chart to the upside that’s stable and growing continuously and capturing major marketshare thus increasing ZEC’s market cap position in the crypto market will only do wonders for Zcash in terms of more funding for development, a faster growing community, more support, less nasty comments on twitter from OG bitcoiners such as Weirtheimer and Adam Back, Fluffy, etc…and most importantly it will shut everyone up once and for all and Zcash will look invincible.
Definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. So I ask you, what will be different in the coming 4 years if a renewal is granted to ECC and if a portion of mining rewards is allocated to ZF? Everything sounds great hearing focus on dev growth, focus on regulators, marketing etc, but it still is vague and opaque. Despite all efforts and tech accomplishments and brand awareness, we are undervalued to a point it’s scary to even look at the price. Comparatively to XMR, for quite a long time both price actions were always at neck and neck, but now we’re falling behind and we still have 15 months left before halving and no major catalysts to drive demand until then…thank you
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Or maybe the market makers / liquidity providers hired by Zcash are killing us out of sheer greed to exit their ZEC positions maybe?
Hmmm…no, thats not true, youll find nothing about price in the “mission” and “values” section of either the ECC or ZFND
(I’m not even going to address the other nonsense in that post)