My name is Hanh H. and I am running for a seat on the ZOMG.
About me
Past work
I graduated from a French Engineering School with a Master in CS and
aeronautics. I had several odd jobs after: I worked for the R&D of exotic
derivatives, a few startups related to E-commerce, the database engine of SQL
Server, the embedded version of Windows, etc. My latest jobs were in Algorithmic
Hedge Funds, Crypto and AI.
For Zcash
I got interested in Zcash 2020. I wrote Ywallet, because I wasn’t satisfied with
the design of the existing wallets regarding performance and feature set. During
the “spam” period, Ywallet was the sole wallet that worked in large part because
of its synchronization algorithm, Warp Sync. To this day, W.S. is one of the
fastest sync method, only second to its successor WS 2.
My other contributions to Zcash include the BTCPayServer integration, a cold
wallet, a shielded app for Ledger Nano, and the Coin Weighted Voting platform.
What I can bring to the ZOMG
I have in depth knowledge of the Zcash protocol that I acquired by hands on
development of core tools during the last 5 years. But I also have had a long
career in software engineering. It gives me the ability to decipher, to get to
the essential points and eliminate unnecessary information and exaggerations.
Now that the ZEC price is on the rise, we are going to see a surge in grant
submissions looking for a quick payoff. My experience and involvement with Zcash
puts me in the right position to separate the good from the bad, at least from a
technological point of view.
When any individual has received 1.3 million usd which makes you one of the largest funded developers from ZCG it is important to have you clarify if you will recuse yourself in voting on your own projects and if you will recuse yourself in the evaluation of the completion of the milestones associated with your projects or future projects?
When any individual has received 1.3 million usd which makes you one of the largest funded developers from ZCG it is important to have you clarify if you will recuse yourself in voting on your own projects and if you will recuse yourself in the evaluation of the completion of the milestones associated with your projects or future projects?
Ah I see. Of course I will recuse myself from voting on my own projects. I was only confused because I am under the impression that it is a mandatory rule.
One of the mandatory rules stated inside zip 1015 outlines:
ZCG SHOULD support well-specified work proposed by the grantee, at reasonable market-rate costs. They can be of any duration or ongoing without a duration limit. Grants of indefinite duration SHOULD be reviewed periodically (on a schedule that the Zcash Community Grants Committee considers appropriate for the value and complexity of the grant) for continuation of funding.
This is the first year the Zcash Community Grants pays an organization for services, in this case the Financial Privacy Foundation. In this first year at no time has there been any discussion or notes in 19 ZCG minute meeting about the reasonable market-rate FPF expenses ZCG.
How do you evaluate the value for money FPF charges ZCG? In Q3 FPF completed 6 meetings and completed 39 transactions for $20 000 usd, Is this value for money?
I would like to know more about what direction you want Zcash to take.
What are your views on the transition to proof of stake? Do you support it, how much of a priority is it to you, general thoughts etc..
What are your thoughts on ZSAs, and do you think ZSAs will make a big impact on Zcash? More broadly what are your thoughts on making Zcash programmable by adding private smart contracts?
What are your views on layer 2s? Do you think they are a good idea and do you think Zcash needs a layer 2?
Do you want to keep or get rid of the transparent pool?
Do you think it is more important to focus on making ZEC a store-of-value or a means of payment?
Afaik, before that, the ZCG depended on the ZF. it was significantly worse because Jack had the final word and could block any project if it required legal autonomy.
20000 USD may seem a lot but it is much lower than what the ECC spends on administrative tasks. Check their latest budget for reference.
My view can be roughly summarized as Zcash = Private Bitcoin at ∞ tps.
What are your views on the transition to proof of stake? Do you support it, how much of a priority is it to you, general thoughts etc..
I am a bit concerned about the potential impact on the token economics and the market price. I don’t know of a major coin where a switch to POS was beneficial in this respect. However, in the long run, I think POW is not sustainable.
What are your thoughts on ZSAs, and do you think ZSAs will make a big impact on Zcash? More broadly what are your thoughts on making Zcash programmable by adding private smart contracts?
There was a poll on what feature the community wanted added to Zcash. I voted for programmability and only for programmability. Unfortunately, I think we passed the moment when ZSA would make a big impact. Now, the excitement for tokens/nft is gone so I don’t see ZSA being used much. With programmability, one could have implemented ZSA with a few lines of contract code. But shielded programmability itself is very very hard.
What are your views on layer 2s? Do you think they are a good idea and do you think Zcash needs a layer 2?
Well, with Tachyon, Zcash wouldn’t need a layer 2. However if the transactions move off chain, one may argue that this is a question of semantics.
Do you want to keep or get rid of the transparent pool?
Get rid, but only if synchronization can be made instantaneous or at least O(log N).
Do you think it is more important to focus on making ZEC a store-of-value or a means of payment?
Means of payment for sure. Store of value implies that there is mandatory continuity of pool support ad eternam. I don’t think we should keep Sprout forever. I think it’s nice to have a migration plan, but if I had to choose between innovation and backward compatibility, it’d be innovation.
Something like: the latest 2 protocols can send/receive, the 3rd/4th can only send, the 5th and earlier are retired.
Alert on official website and popular wallet.
Ideally have a contingency plan like a multisig holder that verifies old pool and pays out. Make it take a commission for the cost of running it.
I meant my own argument of the pros/cons between ZEC being both a payment means and a SoV. I noticed some inconsistencies with your answers which is why I was asking for clarification.
If I understand you correctly, your ideal vision of ZEC is a currency people use for everyday payments. But for that to work, ZEC needs either:
reasonably stable purchasing power
a stable asset on top of it (e.g., a ZSA stablecoin) that people actually use for payments.
Right now, ZEC has neither of those properties. A payment currency that fluctuates dramatically in price isn’t realistic for everyday use.
At the same time, long term appreciation of ZEC does benefit the ecosystem (more value, larger dev fund, more develpment, stronger network effects, etc.).
This is why I’m confused about your idea that ZSAs “won’t be used.”
A private stablecoin ZSA would directly solve the payment/currency problem. Either ZEC becomes stable on its own (unlikely), or ZSAs provide something stable on top of ZEC that people can use for payments.
So from my perspective, stablecoin ZSAs seem not just useful but essential if ZEC’s primary role is meant to be payments.
And for the record I think you are extremely qualified for this position and I’m very grateful for all of your contributions to Zcash when no one else was stepping up. I just want to make sure I understand your perspective.
Apart from the requirement to retain t-addresses (as they are the main channel for compliance, traditional banking, and cash integration), the t-address should be retained but not used by default, it should remain optional.
We would need hundreds of million (if not billions) in ZSA stable coins to make them usable as a a mean of payment. I think the US gov will do its best to prevent this from happening… IMO, ZEC has better chances to become stable on its own.
