# How does ZEC fit into the Zcash Foundation's long-term strategy? **URL:** \ **Category:** Governance\ **Created:** [May 7, 2022, 8:10pm UTC](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/how-does-zec-fit-into-the-zcash-foundations-long-term-strategy/41512 "2022-05-07T20:10:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 97
**Author:** ![nullius](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/zcash/user_avatar/forum.zcashcommunity.com/nullius/32/20935_2.png) [@nullius](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/u/nullius)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2022, 2:08am UTC](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/how-does-zec-fit-into-the-zcash-foundations-long-term-strategy/41512/97 "2022-07-20T02:08:04Z")
Just a quick point about ZSA’s > [@madars](#): > > The beauty of ZSA’s to me is that they pave the way for adoption: people get exposure to Zcash – both the technology and the asset. A cryptocurrency with strong Layer 1 privacy is ideal for zk-NFTs, including private transfers, private proofs of ownership, etc. Same for stablecoins as Zcash shielded assets - > [@madars](#): > > I’d say that ZSAs are useful even in absence of DeFi and smart contracts, so we should deploy them ASAP. In the right conditions—_a big if, which looks like a “no” right now_—in the right conditions, an excellent implementation of ZSAs would put Zcash directly in competition with Blockstream for one of its major B2B products. (I admire Blockstream—but if Zcash has a better offering, then Zcash should compete on the merits.) I believe that the current strategy of desperately pursuing retail is pure folly. The niche retail market for privacy coins is already saturated. ECC has already achieved _one_ of the key requirements for absolutely dominating that niche: Getting rid of the “trusted setup”. And it is not a market that will be expanded by advertising on social media. With the exception of some public figures (such as Snowden), people who _really_ care about privacy eschew social media! Retail will be brought in by B2C, if there is a better strategy for showing retail businesses what they have to gain. Bring retailers to see the value _to themselves_ of accepting Zcash, and then let them deal with their customers. (Yes, I have ideas for how to do this.) Outside of the privacy coin niche, one of the best approaches to retail is indirect: Sell to the middleman. Another is to build whole new horizontally- and vertically-integrated platforms for this purpose (more ideas…). And look beyond that! **There is big money in B2B and in other sophisticated, high-value financial usages.** As a part of what I call the “privacy [elephant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant)” in a yet-unfinished essay, my vision for Zcash is to position itself to compete head-on with [Blockstream Liquid](https://www.blockstream.com/liquid/). Bless their hearts, most retail BTC sat-stackers don’t even know that Liquid exists. Requirements: - **Stable ZEC economics.** Any major change of coin economics (including, but not limited to POS) destroys confidence in the ecosystem and its long-term stability. - **A Bitcoin-friendly ecosystem.** Big talk about replacing BTC is a fantasy—and it is self-defeating. Hostility towards Bitcoin drives money away. This forum didn’t have that type of toxic culture in 2017. For comparison, note that although I mentioned somewhere here my dislike for Ethereum, in the same breath, I praised the Ethereum Foundation for working with ECC. Unless it were to be contextually relevant (_e.g._, perhaps in a discussion of “switch to POS” rheoric), this is not the right place for me to be nursing the grudge that I’ve had against Ethereum since their [“irregular state change”](https://blog.ethereum.org/2016/07/20/hard-fork-completed/). - **An excellent implementation of ZSAs.** Needs to be designed and reviewed for suitability for business use cases, not only flashy retail stuff. I will take a look soon. Not to restrict use cases, but to make sure that use cases aren’t missed, a point-by-point comparison with Liquid should be done. - **A trustless or trust-minimized 2-way pegged bridge for zk-BTC, plus other trustless bridges.** Preferably built with zero-knowledge proof technology, like [the `=nil;` Foundation’s project for a trustless bridge](https://blog.nil.foundation/2021/11/01/solana-ethereum-bridge-design.html) between other blockchains. Hey, are there any world-class experts in zero-knowledge proofs here? 😆 Not to beat a dead horse, but I think that catching the node up to parity with upstream would also help. Also, maintaining API and protocol ecosystem compatibility with Bitcoin is critical. **Being a Bitcoin-like coin with strong L1 privacy is a Microsoft strategy: Embrace and extend.** I’d _thought_ that that was Zcash’s original design. > [@madars](#): > > Privacy for NFTs is big and a private stablecoin will be massive. Beyond that: What do exchanges do, if they want to settle between themselves a large block of BTC without inciting Twitter speculation about an impending pump or crash? Sometimes, I wonder about that—and about other Liquid use cases not discussed on “crypto Twitter”. I recall that long ago, I saw a quote from [Greg Maxwell](https://bitcoincore.org/en/2016/02/26/zero-knowledge-contingent-payments-announcement/) explaining that a lack of privacy is a major deterrent to **business adoption** of Bitcoin. (Spent too long searching for the source, in support of intended essay about the privacy elephant; cannot yet find.) I myself observe that **the majority of ordinary individuals _do not care_ about their own privacy.** Proof: Google and Facebook exist. Proof: Most people accept doing KYC. Proof: After the Snowden revelations, nothing really changed. Proof: PGP is over 30 years old, and most people _still_ don’t use it. Proof: …I could continue all day. **Businesses care about their privacy.** Money talks. Commercial espionage is a thing. Leaking your financials (and your financial relationships!) to competitors on a global public ledger is bad for business. I think it’s is no coincidence that Maxwell invented [Confidential Transactions](https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Confidential_transactions), and that Blockstream originally adopted that for Liquid. > [@Blockstream (https://www.blockstream.com/liquid/)](#): > > The Liquid Network is a Bitcoin layer-2 enabling the issuance of security tokens and other digital assets. Execute trustless swaps using non-custodial orderbooks and protect your financial privacy through confidential transactions. I think that would be a great position for Zcash—if Zcash wishes to choose that direction. And though I don’t imagine that ZEC will ever replace BTC, I think that **a mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship** between the two ecosystems would bring a flood of value into ZEC. To suppose that people would embrace Zcash for high-value financial uses without buying into ZEC is an unrealistic concern, in my opinion. Not even for fees, which I advocate should be kept low as practicable; I disagree with the comparison to ETH gas. Just because people who come to _depend_ on the Zcash ecosystem for high-value usages will probably wind up buying ZEC—even using it as money! In addition to the benefits of such an arrangement in itself, I also see this as one of several ways to push for real privacy in Bitcoin, as Zcash establishes itself as _the_ privacy leader. Win-win. Good for Bitcoin, good for Zcash—and it makes the world a better place. * * * > [@tokidoki](#): > > > [@nullius](#): > > > > It was not that way five-plus years ago. > > You don’t have too many maxis back then I believe. A lot of it started after Ethereum and ICO season, right? > > Anyway, not talking as a mod here. This is also clearly out of the topic. No. Before that: Community fractures over the so-called “Bitcoin Foundation” starting around 2013 (Zcashers take note!), which devolved into the Fork Wars from around 2015, etc. By the way, I think it’s likely that if the so-called “Bitcoin Foundation” had not served as a vehicle for Mike Hearn to sow anti-privacy, anti-fungibility memes, maybe Bitcoin would have strong privacy by now. **Many, perhaps most Bitcoin maxis love privacy.** Hearn is long gone, but Bitcoin is still a battleground between pro-privacy and anti-privacy forces. Speaking for myself, I like _a few_ altcoins that made their own tokens and their own chains from genesis—but I have an unlimited hostility towards all of the scam-forks and attempted scam-forks: BU, XT, BCH, BSV, S2X, “Bitcoin Diamond”, “Bitcoin Gold”, _et al., ad nauseam._ Many (not all!) Bitcoin “maximalists” have their own special altcoins that they dearly want to succeed, like me with my ZECs; many are more or less privacy-oriented. For instance, the Bitcoin Forum’s administrator is publicly known to have some sort of affinity for GRIN. GRIN has enough privacy that unless I am misremembering, it’s suffered some FUD delistings for “oh noes, untraceable money!!!” Way too many do BTC+XMR. I think that some of them would be more receptive to Zcash now that the “trusted setup” is dead. Discussing privacy coins with people in those circles, the _one and only_ argument I could never entirely answer was “trusted setup”. Now, it is gone—but POS is a dealbreaker! That is [Zcash shooting itself in the foot—in so very many ways](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/pos-is-a-scheme-for-illegal-unregistered-securities/42560). This is all relevant to ZEC and to the Zcash Foundation’s long-term strategy, for reasons that should be obvious—plus one that is too easy to ignore, as I mentioned in my prior post on this thread, and elsewhere: Bitcoin is the one and only coin from which Zcash has taken so much MIT-licensed code in the open-source spirit, without ever yet giving anything back. --- _[View the full topic](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/how-does-zec-fit-into-the-zcash-foundations-long-term-strategy/41512)._