Hardened. Few. ECC Update

[joshs]

Source

Zeeps,

The Zcash community has many different kinds of people. I’ve been here since inception. I’ve seen them all.

Many are passers-by. They look around, decide it’s not for them, and then move on.

Some are mercenaries. They are here for the money, social standing, or approval. Some come into the ecosystem to exchange their skills for grant funding. I have no problem with mercenaries who provide something valuable, but their loyalty is to themselves.

The core of the Zcash community is its champions. They are here for the mission, full stop. These people are the ones that stick. They count the cost, weather the storms, put their heads down, and keep building, using, and evangelizing. They are hardened, skilled, uncompromising, and unstoppable.

It’s because of these few that we will win. Because of these few, we now have usable decentralized private money and will soon have it at scale. Our champions are here not just for themselves but for the ones standing beside them so that everyone benefits.

I’m reminded of this quote from Howard Roark in The Fountainhead: “I don’t intend to build in order to have clients. I intend to have clients in order to build.” In his case, Roark was his own champion, committed to his individualistic vision for architecture. He did not do it for money, social standing, or approval. He was hardened and uncompromising.

Our vision is for a better world. We’re not compromising our mission for dollars in our pocket, the hope of empty praise, or adoption at all costs. If so, we would gladly compromise the Zcash protocol at the first sign of pressure from centralized commercial and governmental powers. And the pressure has and will continue to come. Make no mistake, the arrows will fly, and when they do, “we’ll fight in the shade.”

To be a champion, you must look into your heart and decide who you are and what matters to you. You cannot be average. There are no average champions. You must decide to take risks, fight hard, and remain true.

If you choose to be a champion, let’s together:

• Hold the line: we cannot compromise our mission
• Lock arms with the faithful: working with one another
• Move with intention: marshaling the limited time and resources swiftly and boldly
• Embrace the volatility: let’s not get thrown off course by price, actions by exchanges (ahem, Binance), or regulatory pressures
• Choose the terms of our engagement: drawing Xerxes into the Hot Gates rather than attempting to engage where we are outmanned
• Recruit others: building our ranks, person by person, partner by partner

We are a small force pitted against a mighty foe. While I know many believe the outcome is not certain, I know the champions that are within our ranks, and I know our cause to be true.

We will win.

Hardened. Few.

Here’s the work of a few of our champions this week:

Zashi

Zashi Design

• Made progress on App Redesign: Wallet Status Widget designs, Syncing + Restoring UI, Balances UI
• Continued on Available Balance designs
• Started design exploration for Crosschain Payments for Maya/Near
• Made a bunch of ad hoc product and engineering-requested edits

Q&A and Dev Support

• Tested Android dev build with App Redesign
• Taking care of user support issues and Discord
• Supporting the Zashi team with ad hoc requests
• Finalizing and implementing a QA Release Checklist
• Next: Zashi 1.5 Release Testing

Zashi iOS

2.0 Release:

• iOS 16+ navigation: TCA failed us hard with stack overflow issue (discussions with TCA devs helped to clarify the issues)
• Fully reimplemented flows: Settings, Get some ZEC from Home Screen, Receive screen with Request ZEC flows, Send flows with scan ZIP321 flows, Scan flows from Home Screen (new button), Add Keystone Wallet from More… & Account sheet
• Around 75% of overall work done
• Created a prototype for the new Wallet Status Widget on the Home Screen

1.5 Release:

• implemented transparent gap limit handling & fix witnesses support
• testing and pushing testing builds

Analytics Update:

Unique Installs: 6.99k
Total Downloads: 8.32k
AppStore Rating: 4.9*

Zashi Android

Resolved deprecations in CI actions on all repositories

SDK Updates:

• Adopted changes for resolving the note commitment tree bug
• Added the ability to persist a state permanently to SDK using SharedPreferences

BIP39 library:

• All dependencies updated
• Released new version 1.0.9

Zashi Updates:

• Seed suggestions refactored
• Restore Seed & Wallet Birthday Height logic fully refactored
• Implemented Wallet Status Widget
• Onboarding tech debt
• Home Screen tech debt

Analytics Update:

Total Install Base: 3.71k
Total Installs (incl. Open Beta): 16.3k
PlayStore Rating: 4.469*

Zcash Core

• New releases of librustzcash crates (zcaash_protocol 0.5.1, zcash_transparent 0.2.1, zcash_keys 0.8.0, zcash_client_backend 0.18, zcash_client_sqlite 0.16) to enable transparent wallet recovery and fixes for note commitment tree corruption.
• Implemented wallet scanning in Zallet using Zaino.
• Added listaddresses support to Zallet.
• Provided input & specification assistance for governance proposals.
• Reviewed NYM code.

Other

Published governance-related ZIPs for community feedback.

A couple core team members will be out in Sofia with others in the Zcash community this week for HACS, Real World Crypto, and ZkProof.

Began Q2 pre-planning for Zashi.

2.5M+ in the shielded pool!

That’s all for this week.

Uncompromising,

Onward.

[ceb9ceb4ceb9cf89cf84]

I confess that at first it was for money, I bought Zcash thinking about being rich. Over time I see Zcash as a hedge. We are on the opposite line of the system, we will have pressure from all sides. We need to stop having bad, pessimistic thoughts and move forward even in the face of difficulties. we are not doing anything wrong. If we are receiving pressure, then it is because we are standing out and we need to move forward, resilient, where each pressure, each wear and tear converts into stronger muscles, better and bigger thoughts, seeing opportunities where no one has seen before. we are on the right track. the world needs private and decentralized money. we need our freedom, privacy. we are not doing anything wrong. long live Zcash.

[outgoing.doze]

Electric Coin Co. strategy: A 30-year vision

Success criteria for 2025

• ZEC users: The number of users has doubled from the previous 16-month period, and the ECC wallet is seeing 1 million monthly active users.
• Zcash is a top-10 cryptocurrency by market cap.
• Sentiment: The Zcash Net Promoter Score (NPS) is ≥ 50 every year.

How are we doing @joshs ?

[joshs]

We’re alive, with full hearts, and renewed resolve. Hardened, executing, and winning.

[outgoing.doze]

So every question I’m going to ask you’re going to answer with a fortune cookie quote?

[joshs]

Ask better questions

[outgoing.doze]

“I believe that coin holders should determine if and how dev funds are distributed.” – Building Consensus. ECC Update - #5 by joshs

Why do you say one thing and do another?

Or should we talk about the weather?

[outgoing.doze]

Oops, I have respectfully challenged the CEO of Zcash.

Thankfully the ZF/ECC community is able to censor my messages, because it makes it all so much better.

edit: “Flagged post restored by staff”

[artkor]

Goosebumps. Thank you! We all go through these stages. It’s a principled stance by people who understood why Satoshi invented bitcoin and what went wrong. We’re here to see the mission through. And everyone years from now will feel this pride in being here at this moment when the industry went after the money with the bitcoiners, but we are still here for our idea.

[zancas]

What are your values?

I’m interested in whether your energy can help this community protect and enhance human dignity.

Does that sound interesting to you?

If you share those values then your energy will be naturally aligned, if you don’t, then it will have a more dynamic quality.

So, again, what are your values?

[outgoing.doze]

@zancas

What are your values?

I can answer anything and that will be irrelevant. Use what you can observe.

Maybe you can for example observe that I do not wish to tolerate any more theft of fellow shareholders, because I truly believe that it is hindering the project.

I will gladly take the time to express more of my views once this primary objective will be achieved, but for now, that’s my main focus.

[zancas]

@outgoing.doze

I can answer anything and that will be irrelevant.

Not to you.

Anything you express will allow the option of becoming more self aware.

@outgoing.doze

I do not wish to tolerate any more theft

For example, you express a sense of outrage, maybe you’re attracted to Zcash because it offers people protection from exploitation.

I feel that’s Zcash’s beauty, that it provides people opportunities.

Zcash creates options so people don't have to do what they don't want to do.

In conflict it’s interesting that we reach for tools of coercion, but Zcash means that we have more options.. other tools that we can build.. and then reach for.

We can lower our swords, like the thumbs of so many T-101’s into the molten vat, to be forged anew, into forms unforeseen and wondrous.

I believe that Zcash allows the option of compassion, Karuna, but only courage can give us the strength to take that option.

[outgoing.doze]

@zancas

Not to you.

Anything you express will allow the option of becoming more self aware.

I just don’t think that me telling you that I have grand values would help anyone, not you, not me. It’s just labels. I have expressed in some details my intentions and reasoning behind those, hopefully that’s achieving some of what you are asking me.

@zancas

We can lower our swords, like the thumbs of so many T-101’s into the molten vat, to be forged anew, into forms unforeseen and wondrous.

I don’t understand what you say but I like the spirit.

I love what you do and how you do it @zancas. I’m looking forward to exchange more, but for now I’m on a mission. Ttyl.

[pjv]

Sorry to keep beating on this dead horse, but…

While we’re busy “hardening” our respective self-images, how about let’s harden the wallet?

Instead of making it look prettier or making it more amenable to various integrations, maybe first we should prioritize shipping a privacy-protecting wallet for our privacy-protecting coin that maybe has a couple UI warts or incompatibilities with esoteric cross-platform protocols, but that can do very basic privacy-protecting things like rotating addresses.

[outgoing.doze]

Yeah one of life’s biggest mysteries. We’ve had that on ZecWallet lite and since then developers have decided that it wasn’t worth their time. I cannot wait to help direct dev funds to wallets that understand what token holders actually want.

Rotating addresses would only be the start of decency when it comes to privacy on Zcash wallets. See, the problem is that even with rotating keys, if your phone gets hacked, stolen or seized, all your past transactions are compromised. Major privacy red flag.

Personally, the only way I have found to achieve proper inbound transaction privacy is to use two wallets: Zingo + any other wallet. For some people this reasoning could make sense for outbound transactions as well, but subject at hand is rotating addresses so I’ll remain on the inbound subject.

One of the great things with Zingo (cc: @zancas) is that it’s immediately ready after a fresh install or in my case, after clearing the app storage, which I do after each transaction. (Android)

I share the Zingo address to the person sending me funds, then I forward those funds to my “main hot wallet”, and finally I wipe Zingo’s app storage

All inbound are now not just untraceable on the blockchain, they are now untraceable anywhere (I’m simplifying, ok).

And that’s why I fully agree with @pjv. And to go beyond his point, we have great developers but most of them really do not have that critical need for that privacy so they literally don’t understand how to prioritize, or potentially properly design, those features.

People attracted to ZEC have a clear need for that privacy, and that’s just one more reason why I want them to decide how to allocate the funding. Developers developing whatever they think is nice is the absolute worst approach. Users know what they need and amazingly here, users and ZEC holders are the same.

[outgoing.doze]

I’ll make a separate point in this separate post.

This level of precaution may make one suspicious that I do illegal stuff. That is absolutely not the case, but I cannot prove either way, so think what you want.

But, if you are even a little bit informed about the state of the world, you’ll agree that we’re heading into a level of mess we have not seen in a long time, if ever.

It’s the same reasoning I apply to the importance of having a resilient and anti-fragile dev fund governance, to how to protect my transactions history. I assume that anything that can be attacked, or exploited, will be.

And overall, I think it’s with that mindset that Zcash should be steered.

Currently it is steered with the following mindset and to me this is heading us straight into a wall:

"I’d say that building privacy preserving technology that gets adopted by banks and the WEF is cypherpunk AF! " – Call for anon cypherpunks in Zcash - #21 by Dodger

ZEC stakeholders, it’s time we take our role seriously. Please vote.

[joshs]

The roadmap is here: Roadmap - Electric Coin Company It’s updated quarterly.

Address rotation is in development.

[pjv]

FWIW, I don’t see what I would call a roadmap at that link. I see a few paragraphs of what seems to me like corporate-speak; the second one seeming very generative-AI-ish to my inner ear.

Then I see a “click for pdf view” directive that is — for me, anyway — not connected to any kind of link or PDF. Is that missing or is my browser failing to render something properly.

Roadmap notwithstanding, every time I see one of these updates about the zashi wallet which is highlighting UI design changes and integrations with various other chains, protocols, and hardware wallets, it affects me as mal-prioritization of dev resources.

You might say that I’m just talking my book; claiming that my own personal priorities should be the project’s priorities and I guess I don’t have that good an argument against that because obviously a more privacy-preserving wallet is in fact my highest priority of what I’d like to see happen before dev resources are used for other features.

But honestly, what is the entire point of zcash? What differentiates it from, say, bitcoin? The answers to those questions are not intrinsically linked to my personal priorities. It’s merely coincidence that the entire purpose of zcash is privacy protection and my periodic beating-a-dead-horse agitation for address rotation as the first dev priority for zashi is about… very basic privacy protection that has been available in almost every bitcoin wallet forever.

P.S. I think that second paragraph (whether written by person or machine) may be mis-using the word ‘affect’ in the first sentece. If it means have some effect on momentum, then it’s good as-is, but if it’s trying to mean creating momentum, then the right word to use there would be ‘effect’.

[joshs]

The roadmap is indeed the pdf.

We have to prioritize our work based on a number of factors including security, resource constraints, how it dovetails into other efforts, etc.

For example, we’re currently limiting how much time is needed from core so that they can focus on zallet, the replacement cli wallet. Some of what is built for zallet can then be used for Zashi and other wallets.

Some things that may seem trivial, aren’t in the context of Zcash. As an example, displaying the USD price opens the user to timing attacks if not routed through a mixnet.

In this case, we also spent time thinking about address linkability The team is vigilant about side-channel attacks. It’s why we’re frequently asked to audit other’s code (Penumbra, Qedit, etc).

Shielded hardware wallet support with Keystone proved to be overwhelmingly positive for Zcash. We’ve come a long way in a year, and have a strong platform to continue to build upon. I’m proud of what we’ve delivered and will continue to deliver.

[zerodartz]

theres a bug or sth so it doesnt show on Brave browser also for me
but shows in safari:

the pdf link i got from safari: https://electriccoin.co/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/New-2.pdf