zk channels and BOLT stole the spotlight from XCAT, but thats just a guess, i am curious now too reading this
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The Fly Wheel was an instant yes from me. Very impressed and excited to see this academically applied. I was essentially looking for someone who uses images and graphs to vote for, seeing as the applicants for grants will have a lot of charts for the public to see ideally, when performance review and what not are executed.
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Iâm generally in favor of structures that encourage and enable broader participation in decision-making. As long as these structures are viewed as legitimate, they can be particularly helpful in times of contention. So I think providing regular ZEC-holders with a formal and secure channel to voice their opinions, incl. on how MG funds are allocated, is a good objective to have. What form such a channel should take and how much power regular ZEC-holders should have relative to other governing entities needs to be discussed. Compared to some other leading networks, Zcash has been quite cautious about venturing into experiments with direct on-chain governance, so I wouldnât expect anything too radical too soon. But I think the general direction is towards more inclusive decentralization, which is what formalized coinholder polling/voting would certainly provide, assuming that potential issues with security, privacy, and gameability are addressed.
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the z2z message board would be a great way to use letter to the editor style opinions on MGâs with a layer of privacy for end users, or even here on zcash community forum.
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for xcats; zec to eth systems the length of extra data was the issue. ethereum systems had data fields of arbitrary length so they could make a precompile which would be too long for the btc/zec system to propigate and could lead to exploitation. The z2z memo could be used now though maybeâŚ
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ML_Sudos post was moved into an existing topic discussing FATF: FATF: Possible Death Of Privacy Coins?
Hi all,
Iâm really excited for the dev fund and all the candidates that are applying for a seat on the council. My hope is that the MGRC will allocate dev funds as efficiently as possible to expand the Zcash ecosystem while helping to increase the adoption/usage of z2z transactions.
I believe that itâs important that the council represent a diversity of balanced perspectives in order to achieve this goal. Here is my rubric:
(*) VC/investment experience - why? The success of the MGRC is dependent on the ability of the council to allocate funds to the projects that will grow the value of ZEC. Someone with investing experience should help MGRC navigate treasury management as ZEC price fluctuates.
(*) ECC or ZF representative - why? Even though MGRC is independent of the ECC and ZF, it is still important that a representative from either organization is a member to support and coordinate with grant recipients. In reality, progress may be difficult for certain projects without input or technical support from ECC or ZF.
(*) Non-Zcash related governance experience - why? Someone with governance experience from other blockchain projects would provide that expertise to the MGRC to sort out any governance issues that may come up. The main caveat here is that outside governance experience was successful.
(*) Developer/builder experience with privacy tech - why? Building usable privacy-enhancing technology is hard. Someone with a deeper understanding of these difficulties on the council will be important for judging the technical merits of grant projects.
(*) Zcash community member - why? An active community member on the council will enable the MGRC to factor in the desires of the community in what projects are funded in a more direct way.
Just my 2 cents.
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That is a valuable endorsement coming for you as you are highly revered for your work in our space.
Since it is unlikely that anyone else will do so, I must temper your very first post on zecforum by attaching a notice to your recommendation:
As I understand, you are funded by ECC, ZF and VCâs, all of which very well coincides with my interpretation of the Zcash Network Flywheel:
âI would liken [BOLT] to infrastructureâŚ"
âBolt Labs eventually plans to generate revenue by offering services to institutions involved in activities like over-the-counter trading, that require both significant scale and discretion.â
https://www.coindesk.com/bolt-labs-raises-1-5-million-seed-round-to-boost-lightning-privacy
While it may be in your best interest to promote your financiers onto the MGRC, I must let you know that it is not something my survey respondents and many end users would prefer.
Moreover, I donât think Venture Capital is the right type of investor for MGRC and I am (not really) surprised that I am the only one taking a stand on this since @acityinohio left:
Unlike token holders, Venture Capitalists provide investor capital to companies, much like your own, that exhibit high growth potential in exchange for an equity stake.
On the otherhand, MGRC must provide Zcash mining proceeds to projects that directly benefit Zcash end users, exhibiting high potential to increase Zcash adoption** in exchange for nothing!
In fact, ZFâs most successful grants (those that delivered a product for zcash end users) were not granted to companies! Consider ZecWallet and Zboard (precursors to ZECpage). Even Zebrad!
We must understand that the lifeblood of a VC firm is DEALFLOW.
And the lifeblood of ECC, worst case scenario? VCs!
Deal flow is the total amount of investment opportunities a company has. VCâs would love to sit on MGRC and watch the opportunities pour in!
Perhaps, if ECC/ZF can give VCâs dealflow (via MGRC), VCâs will give ECC/ZF cashflow for more things likeâŚ
ECCâs VC arm:
Bolt, a private, off-chain scaling solution on top of the privacy-focused Zcash cryptocurrency, attracted significant investment from several key players in the crypto space. Among the crowd is the Electric Coin Company (the company behind the Zcash crypto asset), with its founder and CEO Zooko Wilcox⌠Zcash Creators Invest In Startup Bringing Truly Private Cryptocurrency To The Masses
ZF: In the meantime, the nonprofit Zcash Foundation, separate from Wilcoxâs startup, gave Akinyele more than $40,000 worth of grants in 2018 as the researcher geared up to launch Bolt Labs.
https://www.coindesk.com/bolt-labs-raises-1-5-million-seed-round-to-boost-lightning-privacy
Just sayingâŚ
VCâs, like ECC/ZF, have the own funding.
I would like to see others take a stand for end users and against inbreeding.
Disclosure: No conflicts of interest. All in on ZEC.
Bolt VCs:
Dekrypt Capital (also invested in Coda)
Xpring (also invested in Agoric)
David Lee
Kevin Moore
Lemniscap
Branson Bollinger
Vy Capital
Access Ventures
Kilowatt Capital LLC
Keep up the good work!
VCs trying to get on the MGRC in order to get access to teams that are building really cool things on Zcash is a net good (with some potential exceptions). After all, the MGRC should be funding projects that can be self-sustaining e.g. have a business model. Like I said earlier in this thread, many teams will be looking at the MGRC as initial pre-seed/seed money for their Zcash enabled products/projects. Once these projects have had success, they should definitely seek out outside funding from the MGRC. To have projects with actual earning potential to just get free money from the MGRC is a huge waste of MGRC funding.
The only projects that should be asking for repeat funding from the MGRC should be those that are a public good for the Zcash ecosystem and donât have a direct way to get to a business model of some kind.
To be blunt, this kind of âVCs are inherently vultures + MGRC funded teams should only be focused on Zcashâ attitude is probably going to deter many people from even thinking about applying to the MGRC since many teams care about this space as a whole and probably want to work on the chains that 1) respect them and their work enough to pay them and 2) wonât vilify them for failing some purity test because they want to work on other chains.
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Hello! If you are a CAP member, please remember to vote if you havenât yet. The poll closes at 23:00 UTC September 18.
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Iâm not so sure about this. A project can drive zcash user adoption (MGRC KPI) whether or not it is self-sustaining. For example, if I am not mistaken, the coinpetition code Andrew Miller provided on behalf of Sonya, et al. was used to develop Zecpage, as was old zboard code. No updates have been made to zecpage but adoption steadily grows, especially as people share links to z2z.to/1Another. Plus, the codebase is freely available for others to adapt. So I would consider it self-sustaining by virtue of open-source right now.
VCâs: Know Your Role
Now that zecpage, zboard and zecwallet have proven useful, 
wholly created and funded by earnest efforts between devs and users, VCs may be interested in fueling its growth and fighting for their place at the table.
Notice that VCs didnât SET THE TABLE and they were not able to GRAB MORE SEATS before dinner was served (every inch and % counts).
Also notice that the creators of zecpage, zboard and zecwallet have more room to negotiate with, say, Amentum, Anchorage, a16z, DCG, Dekrypt, Placeholder, USV, etc (the list never ends - they are printing fiat faster than we can mine zcash).
Finally, consider what a cunning VC would do if they come across a grant recipient that would better serve their portfolio companies than the Zcash community, or threaten to inhibit the success of one of their portfolio companies? They have a fiduciary responsibility to f*** us.
sidenote:
If any VC running for MGRC actually wants to fuel Zcash adoption RIGHT NOW then support both zecwallet and zboard to adopt zecpageâs z-address directories and finally enable coinpetitions across our zapps. You will help enable various network effects and we could create a self-sustaining business model via, say, z2z newsletter and zero factor authentications
OK Good point. I would agree. Noted.
That is not my impression and not what I wish to express. For an entrepreneur with less footing, VCs offer incredible resources, especially to get ahead of potential competitors in the market.
Nevertheless, ECC has their own slice of the devfund allocation and they already work closely with VCâs, who, themselves, already have their own funding!
Zcash startups wonât work if Zcash Network doesnât
I donât see any good reason to set a precedent of inviting VCs to MGRC. Our flywheel actually has four distinct dev funds:
- ECC (for-profit)
- ZF (for public good)
- MGRC (privacy for good)
- VC (for-profit)
Iâm afraid that the only reason we are not openly rejecting VCâs from intruding (like Josh Cincinnati did on the big screen as ZF wined and dined FBâs Libra in Croatia during Zcon1, or like my survey respondents did in my Twitter poll), is because we are too intertwined with them.
Hey - I need VC money, too; but, I need zcash to be the internet reserve currency first!
Unlike VCs, MGRC pays grant recipients WITHOUT taking equity (so grant recipients actually get paid more for same work!). Including aforementioned issues with gaining asymmetry on zcash creators (users+devs).
ZIP1014 is adamant about âMGRC funded teams should only be focused on Zcashâ.
P.S. The seat next to Zooko was supposedly taken.
Im having real trouble following this, could you please say which of these it is you are talking about.
It would really help me understand what it is you are getting at. I am not 100% sure the quotes you are using mean what you think they do - but I could be wrong.
1 - People who are VCâs in their âday jobsâ should not be on the MGRC
2 - The MGRC should not engage in VC operations
3 - The MGRC should not give MGâs to VC companies
4 - Something else
1 - They have skillsets the MGRC imho desires. Including negotiation and proposal review.
2 - Grants are kind of like VC funds just with less expectation of financial return (but in this case greater expectation of zcash ecosystem development)
3 - I donât think anyone is suggesting this, and I am at first thought not keen on the idea.
4 - ?
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Thereâs roughly 2 broad categories of projects that the MGRC can fund: self-sustaining projects that are either for-profit (or have the future intention to be) and public goods or purely public goods. A project in the former category is BOLT and a project in the later is ZECWallet.
In my opinion, a project that drives Zcash user adoption without being self-sustaining (or funded through continuous grants) can only do so in the short term. Over the long-term, the project risks being unmaintained due to the maintainers burning out and having to deal with open source users and whatnot.
VCs donât need to set the table. They can simply uses the MGRCâs funding choices as a discovery avenue for future portfolio companies. Case in point, BOLT Labs.
If that cunning VC knows anything about the crypto space, theyâd quickly realize that everything in crypto is based on community. I canât see a rational VC actively try to undermine a particular cryptocurrency ecosystem, let alone Zcash, without them getting a ton of shit for doing so. In other words, your scenario is unrealistic for any self-respecting VCs in crypto.
The roles of both VCs and grant committees is to take bets and fund teams who will execute on their visions. The main difference is how VCs and grant committees decide to fund those teams. Roughly, VCs take equity in exchange for capital whereas grant committees give out âfreeâ money. But both have the same role of identifying and discovering talented teams and paying them for it. Given that, it makes a lot of sense to invite VCs to the MGRC.
This isnât necessarily true. In fact, I would say that grant organizations in this space expect that they are getting a discount on how much they give for a grant as opposed to what a VC would give in capital in exchange for equity. Especially, if that team is working towards a for-profit project.
If this is the case, then youâve already lost Thesis and BOLT Labs, companies that are working on Zcash and other blockchain ecosystems like Ethereum and Tezos. Itâs unrealistic to expect teams to solely focus on Zcash (perhaps, if operating a Zcash public good) considering Zcashâs current standing in the overall cryptocurrency ecosystem. If anything, I believe the MGRC should be trying to recruit strong teams from other ecosystems and giving them a speedy way to get grants to work on Zcash. A major example of this is Polkadot and the Web3 Foundation. The Web3 Foundation personally recruits teams from other ecosystems (especially Ethereum) to work on relevant projects for Polkadot. I would know since I have been personally reached out to by a few Web3 Foundation reps and my former employer was also personally recruited based on their work in Ethereum as well and they were among the first wave of grants from the Web3 Foundation. The Web3 Foundationâs approach is quite aggressive by Zcash standards but it might be whatâs needed to build a strong ecosystem of projects. If you look at how the whole Polkadot launch has been going, itâs clear that the Web3 Foundation has been doing a pretty darn good job and the price of DOT is doing decent for a new L1. Mind you, the Web3 Foundation isnât the only foundation for a newer cryptocurrency in this space with this kind of mindset (e.g. Near Protocol, Celo Foundation, etc). These projects are launching to great fanfare and actual usage. The Zcash community canât be insular about the teams it chooses to fund based on a purity test. That being said, I think itâs reasonable to assume that teams can set up sub-teams that work specifically on Zcash-related projects (e.g. Thesis setting up a Zcash focused team for all things Zcash interop related).
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Fantastic! This is precisely where VCâs come in, right?
In BOLTâs case, because they are concerned with protocol layer functionality that serves token holders, I would highly recommend they continue to seek ECC/VC Devfund assistance to avoid inbreeding. Emphasis added, taboo for effect.
At least you admit that it is possible. I want to make it IMPOSSIBLE. Why take on that risk FOR NO REASON? Besides, no industry is immune from corruption - WHY INVITE IT?
VC funds often incur consecutive losses over long periods of time and still continue to operate! Any cunning investor would look for an edge and disguise any self-disgust.
But they have different end games. If we start from the end and work backwards, we wouldnât want VCs in the beginning. They create asymmetries that could destablize our network flywheel.
Good. They have 3 other dev funds to choose from. Thesis and BOLT and cross-chain companies can and have and will pull from there. No one is stopping them - in fact, WE GAVE THEM MORE FUNDS TO CONTINUE.
MGRC is a newborn. NO INBREEDING
Please read my interpretation of the Zcash Network Flywheel and reconsider. Thank you in advance
I Aâd your Q and Aâs
1 - People who are VCâs in their âday jobsâ should not be on the MGRC
- AGREED, they are fidicuiary first
2 - The MGRC should not engage in VC operations
3 - The MGRC should not give MGâs to VC companies
- Never thought about this⌠I donât see why not. Keep them outside.
4 - Something else
- eventually
1 - They have skillsets the MGRC imho desires. Including negotiation and proposal review.
- **perhaps too good at negotiation (theyâll beat you to the table!). Besides, if they were so good at proposal review, why do so many ventures fail? Because itâs a numbers game! They want the deal flow, baby! Itâs not about the social contract between devs and users (and miners, really)
2 - Grants are kind of like VC funds just with less expectation of financial return (but in this case greater expectation of zcash ecosystem development)
- Yes, every z2z makes the next z2z more anonymous. More useful z2zâs, more users z2z.to/eachother
3 - I donât think anyone is suggesting this, and I am at first thought not keen on the idea.
- Oh⌠hmm⌠I think it could actually get pretty interesting. Letâs invite them to request grants from MGRC. What do you think theyâll ask for/come up with?
Nope. It can be easily argued that VCs funding unsustainable projects and companies in the long-term is a net bad for everyone. Case in point: Uber, WeWork, etc. In this case, since we are dealing with open source communities and projects, many (if not most) VC models are unfit to fill this void. These projects that arenât self-sustaining either need some form of business model or continuous funding as a public good from either the Zcash Foundation, the MGRC or both.
There are risks to this entire thing! VCs are one of the best groups of people that know how to best analyze and handle risks. Itâs what they do after all. Your criticism in this regard is just as applicable to those working for non-profits as much as VCs. Our goal as the ZCAP and broader Zcash community is to minimize certain risks that come from electing certain groups of people. To simply categorically reject a group of people due to some risks (which in my opinion arenât even large probabilistically) is pretty stupid, no?
This isnât necessarily true. Iâm pretty sure the investors in the ECC believe in privacy enough to put their money where their mouths is. Just because they want to be rewarded for taking that risk on the ECC doesnât mean they donât care about privacy or Zcash as a potential internet reserver currency, or open source communities, etc. In other words, the differences in funding models of both VCs and non-profits/grant committees and their end games doesnât have to be zero-sum in thinking.
I donât see this is as good at all. You need to realize that the expertise of the kind that Thesis and Bolt for example have is actually really rare, not only in tech but among the high-skilled sector in general. This is the kind of expertise that takes years to develop. To categorically reject such diverse teams to Zcash is shooting Zcashâs potential to improve significantly in the foot. The Zcash ecosystem needs teams with cross-disciplinary skillsets in order to drive usage and adoption. For example, Thesis works on an app called Fold that has been in production for years and mainly targets Bitcoin users. It would be great if they dedicated a team to building a complimentary application or perhaps extend the current Fold app for Zcash. But by your standards, they would be rejected simply because they can get that funding elsewhere. But, this is the kind of thing the MGRC should be funding since the Fold app has a history of usage and many Bitcoiners use it.
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You misunderstood me, they were not my statements. I was asking if those were the points you were trying to make.
I disagree with this. I have stated why. I see no reason for me to discuss it further.
What about grants that have profit sharing terms? I donât have a problem with those. If you do, then thats cool. we spoke about that in a different thread. So I assume this is not the point you are making here.
Im still at a loss to what it is you are objecting to. Is it anything at all to do with this?
You have put this statement in quotation marks, who are you quoting?
Because of the inclusion of the word âonlyâ this statement is false. You show the evidence yourself with the screenshots below the statement. Iâm pretty curious as to where/who you are quoting from.
The statement should be: Dev Fund funded teams should be focused primarily on zcash. - meaning that they have to use their Dev Fund money for zcash, in staff time and resource allocation. It is not meant to be a noncompete clause otherwise the zip would have had one.
I actually remember having this conversation, and the wording was specifically chosen so it was not a noncompete but did make sure they didnt use the funds to buy a new office or do work on another project or other non zcash stuff.
If this is what you are objecting to then its going to need a zip, but i dont think the zip will get merged
Do you think this is possible?
Minor updates to make sure I get the point across. Would you risk it? F*** us in favor of their investment partners, that is.
Maybe @cburniske @ml_sudo @mlphresearch and other venturous candidates can chime in â the question is, in light of your fiduciary responsibilities, would you favor your investment partners or the Zcash community when allocating funds?
( I have investment partners, too, I guess, but we are zcashmaximalists like you have never before seen in the wild and we are dead set on crossing The Chasm. Only the success of the Zcash Network Flywheel matters to the success of our portfolio.)
ZIP1014 say grants are administered by NON-PROFIT ZF.
One can seek for-profit terms with zcap approved devfunding at ECC. The structure is perfect, they already did it with Bolt, Coda, Agoric, etc
Why condone double-dipping?
Double-dipping, pick-pocketing, inbreeding - whatever you want to call it.
Read it and weep (I donât know why you would, unless you really wanted to support other networks⌠smdh):
Join the striped side.
Okay, I see the distinction. Perhaps I misrepresented my position in this thread:
I think we both agree that funding should benefit zcash community.
I also think we should adapt existing apps to include zcash, and even offer funding to include a Pay with Zcash button or Shielded Security Seal.
I forgot Thesis made Fold App. Youâre right, that project is a wonderful bitcoin app and likely deserves funding by the MGRC, even in accordance to my interpretation of the Zcash Network Flywheel, namely because they are third party developers creating useful apps for our community to grow our userbase.
Letâs do it!
Discussion of if VCâs should be banned from the MGRC for this election? no, not really. It is a waste of time. the elections are over tomorrow. Im not going to try to stop you discussing it with other people though.
I will be happy to revisit the issue if the need arises.
As I asked before, please show me where this quote comes from.
I already told you I was involved in that conversation and that I remember it.
The ECC is specifically named because of a concern about payment of block rewards to non participating investors (like the FR) and/or because at one point, the ECC floated the âPivotâ option. which was later rejected by them for âAll in ZECâ option. The community wanted to make sure that and community subsidised funding did not go to a pivot. Indeed this is where the âAll in ZECâ phrase originated.
Quick note on some zcash lore: This was at a time of significant (potential?) financial difficulty for the ECC, because unlike has been suggested elsewhere, there was VCâs in zcash (non participating investor is a VC right? close enough for me anyway).
These non participating investors got paid out fully in the first year, I think, they definitely got paid out first, the distribution was not even. Only after they had received their zec that did the ECC get all of the block rewards to use towards development. This created unique economic pressures that I wont pretend to understand but others have discussed in detail. I know the rough conclusions and different opinions. (This is all in transparency reports)
This restriction is not put on MG recipients because they will not have these issues. So if you really want, you can have the word âonlyâ in there if you like, but you have to change MGRC to ECC. the ECC specifically does not get and cannot get MGâs.
as 1014 states:
Pay attention to the two specific disclosure points they will be relevant in a second.
Is this the main crux of your point? Would it be fair to summary as
- You donât trust VCâs with COI, because xyz so the MGRC might not be good enough to stop them taking control or somehow subverting the process?
This is true for anyone and there are checks and balances for this, when combined with the above COI rules and the fact the contract is with the ZFND NOT the MGRC (by design to stop amongst other things issues like the one you have highlighted. We didnât just not trust VCâs. We didnât trust anyone on the MGRC at the time when 1014 was written - there was no one to trust.)
@nathan-at-least from the ECC has rightly questioned what these will look like, and I cant remember what the answer is. This might be a more fruitful avenue for discussion? I think it would certainly be a more positive way to address your concerns.
I am very much up for talking about this, but it will ultimately be decided by the zfnd and maybe the CAP. the MGRC might get input, but I donât see why they would have anymore weight in the discussion than anyone else in the community - i.e. no veto power over the zfndâs decision.
Is there anything else you are having trouble understanding about the zip that I can help with? I have posted all this recently, quite a few times, in quite a few different places (its why my recent read time is so high, I like to verify my statements before I make them if I can.)
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