Major Grants Review Committee Candidates MEGATHREAD

MGRC related question - will the Major Grants be explicitly grants or could the MGRC decide to distribute funds as investments and other stuff like that? Is that something the MGRC will decide or is that determined by the community beforehand?

JW thanks!

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Falling under the legal purview of 501c3 they would be limited from funding private benefits or inurement (as it should be)
What people do with their money is their business but it couldn’t be funded specifically for the purpose of a non-public interest

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In ZIP-1014 it refers to funding specific teams/ projects for Zcash the ecosystem a few times:

The Dev Fund should encourage decentralization of the work and funding, by supporting new teams dedicated to Zcash.

This slice of the Dev Fund is intended to fund independent teams entering the Zcash ecosystem, to perform major ongoing development (or other work) for the public good of the Zcash ecosystem, to the extent that such teams are available and effective.

I’m not sure how the MGRC would distribute the funds as “investments” unless it is to bolster a team that is already working on Zcash, possibly from a previous grant?

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It could be argued that a diverse hardware manufacturing base increases adoption and ecosystem. the GPU supply chains are a lot less fragile than the ASIC based supply chains. If someone had a new take on hardware that significantly improves on current ASIC designs and they wanted to share that for free then I do think this would be in scope for a MG it should certainly be considered if they can be awarded after the fact.

But generally you are right.

Im still on team miner tho, so expect these sorts of posts :slight_smile:

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Just made this post on Hive to draw interest to the MGRC election process as well as mention the Heartwood launch in 58 hours.

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I see grants and investments as separate activities. The MGRC is to issue grants to projects without expectation of financial ROI, and should likely be excluded or strongly discouraged in personally investing in grant projects without transparent disclosure.

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Hmm yes, lets invest this ZEC into ZEC :rofl:

Kidding, but I still think the price is too low to invest heavily into projects. ($62 at time of writing this)

I don’t think the MGRC should invest/gamble development funds.

I think they should strictly be for development.

I think granting a large amount of funds at $400 would be a good usage of funds. That price level has a lot of resistance on the chart.

What about the MGRC hedging against volatility by selling zcash for USD when it is super expensive? (at the peak of the bull market if/when price is $1000+,$2000+)

Where does that money go? A bank account? Controlled by who? Probably the ZF/ECC?

Preparing to be able to fund grant projects during the next bear market is important.

Vitalik did this and called it ‘sound financial planning’.

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@acityinohio. How about opening up the Community Advisory Panel to new members ahead of the vote for the Major Grants Committee? I want to vote! :slight_smile:

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I’d very much like to but would require ECC’s sign-off; we’d need it to not rely on Foundation arbitration of criteria, and I’m not sure it’s possible to craft something with mutual buy-in so quickly — quoting myself up-thread:

Regarding MGRC dream team, here’s a list of people I admire who might be a good fit for MGRC:

  • Jill Carlson, Partner at Slow Ventures, friend of Zcash, twitter
  • Christina Lomazzo, Blockchain Lead, UNICEF Innovation, twitter
  • Joy Buolamwini, Algorithmic Justice League, twitter
  • Pia Mancini, Cofounder, Open Collective, twitter
  • María Paz Canales, Executive Director, Derechos Digitales, twitter, (Derechos Digitales is a human rights/ tech advocacy group in LATAM)
  • Matt Mitchell , Technology Fellow, Ford Foundation, twitter (Founded crypto harlem, consulted for HRF, internet freedom festival, NYT and others)
  • Eva Galperin, Director Cybersecurity, EFF, twitter
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Hi everyone! September’s Zeal call is Tue, Sept 29, about a week after the poll closes for MGRC voting. I would love for that Zeal call somehow involve the newly formed MGRC, perhaps a Meet the MGRC session or something to that effect. @acityinohio @Shawn - how does that sound to you all? Is that something we can add to the current timeline?

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That sounds good to me, will add it to the top post ( as long as there are no objections from @acityinohio )

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No objections! Good idea @elenita. I would say that you should get confirmation from the MGRC members as it will ultimately be up to them but I have to imagine they’d all be game.

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Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I am going to check these people out.

regarding the EFF tho, I would much rather see some kind of partnership with them where they maybe received some of the MG. I think they would have a lot to bring to the table. What is the current relationship between the EFF and the ECC / ZFND like?

Is there anyway to start a conversation with them?

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Ok! @Shawn, it sounds like we can add the date in the top post (maybe include something like tentative, pending MGRC approval) and once MGRC is set up they can decide if/how to use that community time.

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Already done :wink:

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As everyone has mentioned, election time is getting close. There are still serious open questions (i.e. is this a full time gig) Is their a consolidated list of all these questions and will the Gov Panel be deciding this prior to voting?

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I was working on it, but ive be delayed. will try to get a list started in the next few days (unless someone else starts one first.) I suggest a thread just for questions, then we can formalise a questionnaire. - I think most candidates posts are too old to be edited now.

No one really knows if it will be full time for example but people need to say what they would do if it is or if it isnt.

I’ve written a short list here. I would like to encourage people to add to it. I’m sure the smart minds here can come up with some other good questions.

Once we have a good list of questions, it should be turned into a poll.


Should the zcash commuinity advisory panel(ZCAP) allow more members to join?
Should the zcash commuinity advisory panel(ZCAP) be opened for more people to apply before, or after the MGRC election deadline?
Is being a ZCAP member a conflict of interest for serving on the MGRC?
Is being a ECC member a conflict of interest for serving on the MGRC?
Is being a ZF member a conflict of interest for serving on the MGRC?
Is it a conflict of interest for a member of another cryptocurrency project to be on the MGRC?
Should the MGRC seats be full time or part time?
Should the MGRC members be compensated for their time? If yes, how much, and when?
Is it ok for a MGRC member to have another full-time job?
Should the MGRC members all speak english?
Should the MGRC members proactively seek people/teams to apply for grants, or wait passively for people to apply?
Should current rules be kept in place requiring all the board members be replaced every year?
If no, Should 2 of 5, or 3 of 5 board members be replaced every year?
Should the MGRC move a portion of funds into a ‘savings’ account to fund larger unforseen projects?
What % of funds per block should be allocated to a savings account?
Should the MGRC grant Zcash, or USD, or half/half?
Once elected, should the 5 members brainstorm a formal process for determining whether a grant is funded or not?
Should the MGRC require weekly/monthly reports from grantees?
Should the MGRC require full financial transparency for how grant funds are spent by applicants?
Should MGRC members discuss every application on voice chat?
Should the MGRC members have a private, or public group text chat, or both?
What platform to use for text chat?
Should each individual MGRC member write a short report assessing the application and submit it to the rest of the team, and then speak over voice to finalize? (I like this method)

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This is a good starting point. I have a few other general questions on the MGRC process outside of simply determining funding status:

  • Should MGRC members get involved with shaping the outcomes and reporting of individual grants? e.g. I recently spend some time advising Zbay on both their grant timelines and their ethical review - I think that such work should form a core part of the MGRC (but that obviously requires time and effort).
  • Relatedly, to what extent should the MGRC shepherd projects v.s. making firm accept/reject decisions.
  • Should the MGRC adopt other requirements and policies around reporting, ethical review, security engagements (etc.) as part of the grant process?
  • Should the MGRC require budgets and restrict funds to the stated purpose (as is common in grant funding)?
    • If so, to what extent should the committee be available to respond to requests for changes in scope and other budget reallocations?
    • If not, how will the committee ensure that funds are being awarded effectively?
  • Should the MGRC consider funding in tranches?
    • If so, on what timelines should the MGRC review and approve additional funding?
    • If not, on what timelines should the MGRC approve funding without additional review?

I will also add a few higher level questions I outlined in another thread regarding conflict of interest policies:

  • What qualifies as a conflict of interest, including what relationships might appear as conflicts of interest?
  • What standards should there be for disclosing a conflict of interest - both upfront and during governing activities?
  • How conflicts of interest are reported , to what extent are they available to other governing members or to the wider community?
  • What consequences should there be for violating the policy or withholding such information from other committee members?
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