Hello Zeal, I would like your support for the MGR committee

Governance
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Hello Zeal!

I would like to officially declare my candidacy for a working position on the Major Grant Review Committee. I believe in the philosophy behind privacy preserving technology and I believe in its potential in enterprise and business multiparty systems.

I have been a casual participant in the Zcash community in the rocket chat, telegram, and a lurker in this forum. I have been a member of the community governance panel since zcon zero and have actively participated in the process twice, I was also a participant of the latest powers of Tau ceremony, and I personally proposed the zeal as the mascot of Zcash (though I was in favor of secret squirrel) . I am comfortable in using this forum as the primary form of communication throughout this process and equally am open to z2z messages at: zs1ldx7mw3ekxvj7zqgjpv52lvtf22ecjsyqpadl298576lcsd6vv3rafuenyxll05z0yrxgf97awf

Professionally, I am an enterprise blockchain architect at a professional technology consulting firm and I focus on multi-party systems, conversational AI, digital Identity, and work on implementing zero-knowledge systems at scale. I have worked with distributed systems since the early 2000’s in the US military(leaving government service in 2009) and have worked publicly with “cryptocurrencies” since ~2014. I am currently a board member of the Ethereum Classic cooperative and participating member of the Ethereum Enterprise alliance.

My motivation for candidacy in the MGRC is to advance projects which are legitimate in business purpose, technical aptitude, and are an advancement to the Zcash ecosystem. I am familiar with the needs and requirements of enterprise blockchain and security considerations. I understand that this is not a position to be entered for personal recognition or reward and promise to discharge the duties of the position with fairness, openness, and at the pleasure of the community. Zcash has been at the bleeding edge of distributed systems funding and I hope, by my participation, I am able to help advance this global social experiment.

The projects I am most looking forward to in the coming years: z2z messaging systems, privacy as a default on mainnet, more efficient systems being integrated to allow for light clients and full snark chain compression like Coda.

Additionally:

  • I am not financially or otherwise involved with the ECC or ZFND outside of my voluntary role in ceremonies previously listed.
  • When the opportunity presents itself, I will provide a public view address for Zcash holdings on a sapling address.
  • I believe Major Grants SHOULD be restricted to furthering the Zcash cryptocurrency and its ecosystem (which is more specific than furthering financial privacy in general)
  • I will suspend my participation in the community governance panel while serving on the MGRC
  • I will abstain from voting on any grants for companies and organizations I am personally affiliated with

Thank you for your consideration. Party on.

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Hi Cody,

Could you give your thoughts on what you think should be done regarding dev funding after the 4 years of the major grants committee? Should it be continued after the 2nd halvening (year 8), or be discontinued in favor of something else?

Personally I would like to eventually move toward something more decentralized, such as coin holder voting on dev funding.

A decentralized coin holder voting system for dev funding allocation is something that could be funded by the major grants committee.

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I would like to see a more decentralized process on the future. We are starting to see maturity of solutions in the wild like the Bisq dao as an example that is on chain and distrubuted. In 4 years time, and possibly with grants from the MGRC, the community and ecosystem can be in a place where bolt is working, shielded coloured coins and scripts are working, shielded transactions are the norm, and hardware wallets can support signing signatures. These things can be leveraged to create a solution that allows the less zealot to participate and have their opinions heard.

I would say the default should be the MGRC should expect to last only the 4 years, however, there should be periodic checkpoints with the community. If the MGRC is lightning in a bottle and is going tremendous work for the community, arbitrarily stopping it and defunding grantees work should be avoided. Open transport operations are a must. Constant feedback is a must. The more engaged the user base are the better both systems will work

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You have my support. This was a perfect application in my books, I am very fond of the transparency and will to abstain from voting on proposals from orgs you serve on.

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HI @dontpanicburns I’m sure you’re aware of the reputation enterprise blockchains and consultancy has in this space (including probably coining that phrase). I noticed you have a background in that. What do you think that brings as an asset and what as a liability?

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Sure. I have been on both sides of the fence for quite some time now. I started in the public space and then was lucky enough to get a job working on enterprise, so my heart is still very much in the public side. I dont think many enterprise blockchain applications need the public chains, or most even blockchain at all. For enterprise, I work in multi party systems. Distrubuted compute, storage, and state are all very much in demand in large part to the popularity of crypto. The systems I help build do too much traffic with limited value to anyone outside of a legal agreement to need a public chain. Dealing with inter-company politics and solving carbon based problems is 85% of what I do.

There are true legitimate use cases for public chains and zcash is a great example of providing the public with a needed resource (zec) and a fundamental right (privacy). Z2z messages can provide a universal encrypted messaging platform. Zksnarks, starks, snorks and every other exciting advancement in cryptography are all coming from, broadly this community.

The popularity of crypto has also brought in the usual
lot of nefarious actors. They are the ones that know niche tech well enough to spew buzz words to get funding without any intent to deliver or are just looking for funding for an unrelated startup. I spend my days and nights researching emerging tech and its business applications for business and mankind, I like to think this gives me a reasonable understanding of projects requirements and outcomes. Grants should be for research and projects that both benefit zcash and the public good. I think helping draw the line between the two types is the mgrc.

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Also, I am not here on behalf of Accenture (my employer). My actions here and as part of community governance panel are my own interests and hobbies.

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Would you be willing to quit your job in order to focus on your MGRC position full time?
Would you be willing to declare how much compensation for your MGRC role would make such a change worth while?

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I had not considered this as a full time position opportunity before seeing your messages, and I think the MGRC could be successful working in either model.
As a benevolent committee of fund grantors or as an activist group of managing directors.

As for compensation, this would depend on many factors.

Length of term
1 year is short amount of time to consider quitting fulltime employment. Compensation would have to consider health care, travel expenses, and potential income for all the candidates.

Transparency of accounting
Who decides compensation amounts? How is the payment delivered? Does this require the MGRC to have an accountant?

Is there enough work to be meaningfully engaged fulltime
The first year will be exciting, setting up things and getting the MGRC off the ground will be a large effort. But then, if the committee is only used to meet and approve proposals, fulltime seems too heavy. If the MGRC is in a more activist role, it would be necessary for full time staffing and a more clear reporting requirements(how do we judge if the MGRC is doing what it should)

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Hello @dontpanicburns For my vote, please answer my questions frankly:

  1. Are you pro BTC? If yes, Why? If not, Why?
  2. What is the largest account size you’ve handled in USD? How many end users did it impact?
  3. MGRC will control 8640 ZEC per month or 25920 per quarter, how will this be roughly spent? (provide napkin calculation).
  4. MGRC announcement attracts 100s of applicants from all over the world with all random ideas, all matching your goals, how would you evaluate them?
  5. KPIs aren’t entirely possible on a privacy preserving payments protocol project’s level, it’s all z2z, how will you evaluate funded team’s impact?
  6. DeFi fever made ETH run 2x compared to every cryptocurrency this year, thoughts?
  7. What locals, regions, languages, ethnicities, educational backgrounds of people have you worked with? What are your preferences of assembling teams that deliver?
  8. We live in a remote world now, how do you evaluate applicants for grants?
  9. Projects in Zcash are going to go through a huge change beyond the handful, driven teams funded via Zcash Foundation, thoughts?
  10. Zcash is a protocol at its core, ZEC price is volatile. How will you handle a single digit ZEC? ($9 x 8640/month = $77,760) How will you handle a 5 digit ZEC? ($21,000 x 8640/month = $181.44MM) Thoughts…
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  1. Are you pro BTC? If yes, Why? If not, Why?

Yes im still pro, btc was a transformational technology that changed my professional and personal life and has done so much for advancing open source software today that most dont even realize.

  1. What is the largest account size you’ve handled in USD? How many end users did it impact?

I have served as the north American operations officer for an upstream oil and gas company before and in my current role I work with fortune 100 companies to implement multiparty soultion to global scale supply chains that carry billions of dollars in capex per year

  1. MGRC will control 8640 ZEC per month or 25920 per quarter, how will this be roughly spent? (provide napkin calculation).

On major grants. tbd which ones and their funding needs.

  1. MGRC announcement attracts 100s of applicants from all over the world with all random ideas, all matching your goals, how would you evaluate them?

I hope there are more than 100s. Generally speaking, ideas are easy when compared to execution, which is much harder. Evaluating the team is as important as the ideas. The MGRC funds are not free money for trying something out. Projects will need to have a plan and the ability to execute. Every project doesn’t have to be amazing, or innovative but it should provide value to zcash and not just the developers

  1. KPIs aren’t entirely possible on a privacy preserving payments protocol project’s level, it’s all z2z, how will you evaluate funded team’s impact?

Grant recipients should provide viewing keys, a known non anonymous person, and transparent accounting.

  1. DeFi fever made ETH run 2x compared to every cryptocurrency this year, thoughts?

In my opinion, defi fever means degen gamblers have found a new trend to abuse. This isnt healthy, sustainable, or beneficial.

  1. What locals, regions, languages, ethnicities, educational backgrounds of people have you worked with? What are your preferences of assembling teams that deliver?

I work with global teams. Diverse groups allow projects to be more human imho. Everyones backgrounds and experiences shape how they view the world and influences how they think and reason.

  1. We live in a remote world now, how do you evaluate applicants for grants?

Grant applicants should expect to provide frequent updates throughout the process and continue as long as they receive funding. “Remote” work is work, same expectations.

  1. Projects in Zcash are going to go through a huge change beyond the handful, driven teams funded via Zcash Foundation, thoughts?

If the only thing driving zcash is the foundation then the ecosystem would be unsustainable long term. Zcash needs to be approachable to all developers and communities and out grow its current system of governance. The ultimate goal of the MGRC should be to be so successful it puts itself out of business because there are many self funded projects, community groups, and fans that zec has a life all its own.

  1. Zcash is a protocol at its core, ZEC price is volatile. How will you handle a single digit ZEC? ($9 x 8640/month = $77,760) How will you handle a 5 digit ZEC? ($21,000 x 8640/month = $181.44MM)

Hopefully the answer in either case is “with grace”. I love zcash and its goals so the price doesn’t effect my personal motivations. Its my hope projects have the foresite to plan for both possibilities and the mgrc can
value the zec granted out with both situations in mind.

hope this helps everybody!

1 Like