Hi Zeeps,
Humans are born to create. We create order from disorder, picking up the elements around us to birth something new, something only we can see or hear. Sometimes, we use a brush and a canvas; sometimes, we use our breath over a reed; sometimes, we use math with a keyboard and structured language.
Sometimes, the ingredients are fine-grained, and it takes many of them to create something new. But they may also be course-grained, where the mix of just two elements creates a new sort of magic, the combination allowing us to better see the beauty of the individual pieces as well as the union. This is true in the magic found in the connection of two people and in the magic found in a mashup created by connecting two different types of mediums.
Hereās one of my all-time favorite mashups:
For me, Portisheadās music accompanying Eliotās reading of his poem āThe Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrockā somehow deepens my understanding of the emotion expressed in the piece. It adds depth as it tickles my different receptors.
What does that have to do with Zcash?
The user experience for ZEC has often been monochromatic. It does one thing really well, which is awesome. But thatās changing, and our goal with Zashi is to build mashups for ZEC, bringing different things together to create enhanced or even entirely new experiences.
Weāre a small, humble team, but weāre really good at what we do. Eliot was a poetic genius, but to my knowledge, not a musician. We want to take what weāre brilliant at and add things that others built to connect them in new ways.
With Zashi, weāre currently working with and exploring mashups with:
- Coinbase: for purchasing ZEC directly in Zashi using a debit card or your account
- Flexa: so that you can pay using shielded ZEC at large retailers in the US
- Keystone: to securely store your ZEC on a hardware device
- Maya and Swapkit: so that you can swap your other tokens for ZEC without going through a centralized exchange
- Nym: to better protect your privacy from snoops and attackers
- Radom: so that you can buy and use gift cards all around the world
Outside of Zashi, weāre also working with Brave and Filecoin on a shielded wallet and messaging (with attachments) within the Brave browser.
Weāre moving as fast as we can, and more will come.
The broader community is also collaborating and building mashups, which is super cool. Some things are pure tech, some tech + education, and some community collaborations. Beautiful!
Hereās a list of active collaborations in the ecosystem that I can recall off the top of my head:
Protocol
- ECC + ZF: on zcashd deprecation so that we can add more to the protocol faster
- Least Authority + community: to audit consensus changes and ensure Zcash what weāre building works as intended
- Qedit with support from ECC: on Zcash shielded asset support so that you can shield your Bitcoin or whatever other assets you want
- Shielded Labs + ECC: on Crosslink and the move to a hybrid PoS/PoW
Community and Education
- Free2z + the community, including Zingo!, Zcash Brazil, and Zcash Venezuela: to bring the grassroots communities together with information, dialogue, and education
- Mass Adoption Alliance + the community: delivering education through the comprehensive My First Zcash content
- The Dev Fund Coalition: a group of community members that came together to engage the broader community through polling on the future of the dev fund
- Zcash Brazil, Venezuela, Russia, S. Korea: who have been translating and distributing content across various mediums
- Zcash Community Grants + Zcash Foundation (and soon the Financial Privacy Foundation): to fund interesting projects to grow the ecosystem
- Zcash AV Club + ZecHub and others: Fueling the Zcash Global Discord group in ways that are fun and engaging
- Zcash Media: delivering educational content about Zcash and other privacy topics
- ZecHub: keeping us all informed through weekly newsletters and educational content
- ZURE with support from ECC: conducting user research and hosting calls among Zcasher around the world
Wallets
- Edge and Unstoppable + ECC: Delivering multicurrency wallets with full shielded support
- ezCash: delivering a .NET wallet for the community
- Chainsafe: bringing Zcash to Metamask
- Ywallet and Zingo!: delivering great Zcash wallets with advanced features
- Zondax + Ledger: bringing Zcash shielded support to the Ledger hardware wallet
- Zenith: building a new wallet for the ZF Zebra full node
Bridges
- red.dev: creating the bridge between Avalanche and Zcash
Infrastructure
- ECC + Foundry: opening lines of communication between ECC and the Zcash mining community
- zec.rocks: building and supporting infrastructure needed to support light clients
Policy and Regulatory
- Blockchain Association + ECC: connecting Zcash with policy-makers and influencers in Washington, DC
- Coinbase + ECC: keeping our aligned issues in front of the crypto policy community
- Universal Privacy Alliance + ECC: advancing the education and support of privacy-preserving technologies
Holy cannoli! I used to be able to keep up with everything happening in the Zcash universe. Not true anymore. Iād bet I missed some collaborations. If so, call them out!
These mashups are getting so good. Iāve never been as excited about whatās happening in the Zcash community as I am today.
Alright, Zeeps, keep mashing it, and letās smash it!
Bonus mashup. I never understood Rothko until I sat with Rothko. But thatās a story for another time. Got other good mashups? Share them with me! I dig this stuff.
Hereās the mashing and smashing weāve been up to this week:
Zashi
Design
- Finalized designs for the Server Switch Optimization
- Made further progress on designs for the Contact Book
- Made further progress on the Zashi Me redesign
- Working on the opt-in reqs for the Currency Conversion
- Started exploring redesign of the Transaction History, nav bar, and home screen/Account tab
- Made more progress on the new design system in Figma
iOS
Unique Installs: 2.68k
Rating: 4.9 ā
- Exchange rate SDK API refactored
- Exchange rate Zashi side, logic updated to handle manual refresh, fully redesigned + custom tooltip implementation
- Choose the best server, SDK API
- Choose the best server on the Zashi side, full redesign + logic refactor
- Shielded UI for transaction history rebased
- Flexa integration v0.1.0-beta1 reviewed, v0.2.0 adoption next
- Pushed a prototype of Currency Conversion into Testflight [1.1.4 (2)]
Android
Total Install Base: 1.65k
Rating: 4.609 ā
- Resolved several SDK blocking issues on block synchronization improvement
- The SDK sync speed is by cca 50% faster now out of the sandblasting period. We still need some improvement in the sandblasting period.
- Prepared a new SDK release v2.1.3
- Implemented dynamic server switch redesign
- Implemented exchange rate redesign
- Began Flexa work
Zcash Core
- Primarily focused on NU6 implementation work for zcashd: Add `lockbox` funding stream type. by nuttycom Ā· Pull Request #6912 Ā· zcash/zcash Ā· GitHub. We will start working on the testnet and the scope of work for an audit.
- Worked on the Rust implementation of transparent scripts for zcashd deprecation
- Completed rework and responding to review comments on zcash_client_backend support for transparent history (Add queues to track the need for transaction enhancement and/or verification of mined status. by nuttycom Ā· Pull Request #1473 Ā· zcash/librustzcash Ā· GitHub)
- Collaboration meetings with ZF, Flexa, Keystone, ZSA meeting, and with the LCWG
- Deployed the new Android SDK release
- Various reviews and issue remediation
Other
We formally communicated notice for the termination of the trademark agreement.
Met with LAE to discuss options for our outstanding debt.
Began joint campaign planning with Flexa.
Review status with the Brave team. The current target for shielded Zcash support is the mid-September release.
Met with the Keystone team to discuss the approach to adding shielded Zcash.
Ugh. Forbes. Seriously.
ZEC went over $40 for the first time in over a year. About freaknā time.
Thatās all for this week!
Mash it up zeeps.
Onward.
