Zcashers,
Since the day I entered crypto universe I have been mesmerized by the technology Zcash has brought into existence for the use of the common man, particularly in NU5 upgrade!
Zcash is everything that the Cypherpunks envisioned for Bitcoin to be but due to constraints in technology at those times could not achieve. If people like Hal were alive today, I believe there may have been no need to promote ZEC at this hour as he would have been a vocal advocate of Bitcoin having layer 1 privacy. Not many would have been able to argue with him against it, but here we are!
You have not heard from me before on this website or seen me on twitter, I am what you may call part of the Zcash underground. We exist, many of us, but we like to lay low.
Part of the reason to not come out and openly support ZEC was because I for one have first hand witnessed the power of government oppression. There had been talk in my country of making crypto currencies illegal and draconian laws which if implemented could land up people holding or trading crypto currencies behind bars for decades.
I have seen people lives turned upside down by the command of the government and their hard earned money being turned to dust overnight. For those who are not aware, I am talking about the demonetization in India. There have been many other instances such as during the Truckers protests in Canada where the government had cut its citizens from their banks and there was nothing these people could do about it. Therefore money should not be controlled by government but should be private, decentralized, fungible that cannot be frozen or killed at the press of a button – Zcash.
I have a background in pharmaceutical sector where I was director of marketing and led multiple teams ranging hundreds of people. To be clear, this had very little to do with digital marketing but mostly involved direct marketing, public relations, sales, research and managing overall budget which ran in millions of dollars.
I would like to nominate myself to be on ZCG for the following reasons:
Zcash has the potential to become the leading player among crypto currencies, as a matter of fact I see it as a direct competitor to Bitcoin and nothing less.
Adoption is key. With more users only ZEC will be able to reach its full potential. Needless to say this will also help in bringing up the value of ZEC due to network effect. If the community votes to make ZEC shift to POS in the future, more users also would mean that the network is more decentralized.
By all means Zcash even today has among the best product to offer but there is little interest among the people. Coming from a country of a billion people, nobody that I meet in person knows about ZEC. However, they are quick to shill me about meme coins such as Doge or Shiba. These communities have succeeded where we as a community have failed. Most humans are herd animals, they like to be told and lead by people of reputation or famous folks. Next few years ZEC needs to be everywhere, and by everywhere I mean - Educational videos, memes, tiktok, influencers, celebs, giveaways, etc. ZEC needs to become the talk of the town.
Although being focused long term is the key to success, milestones should be in place on how to get ZEC to top 20 places in market cap in the next year and among top 10 - 15 by 2024. I have on boarded many people since 2017 but have also seen most of them sell their ZEC for Doge and other meaningless tokens. An important lesson to learn from this is that people like to invest in products which not only have potential to grow in value but are also part of the grapevine. Now that Zcash has undergone halving and the supply has decreased dramatically, this is the right time to get people interested and talking about ZEC while the sell pressure from miners should remain low.
ZCG needs to work on making people excited about ZEC and acquiring and retaining good talent and teams which have had a good track, for example Nighthawk and Zcash Media.
Like many others in the community, I have also witnessed the friction that had arisen between different teams working on ZEC which also lead to some people leaving the community and this is something that I would work to improve. We need to build bridges and not burn them. There needs to be synchronization between all three – ECC, Zcash Foundation and ZCG so as to remove any conflicts and improve the overall productivity.
Being a strong privacy advocate I only hold ZEC which I started accumulating in 2017 and have been adding onto it since then. I have a short long-term anticipation of ZEC where I see it at a market cap of a trillion dollars within 6 to 7 years (after that sky is the limit) but to make that happen we need to start working on quarterly/half yearly goals. I am passionate about Zcash and if elected would be able to commit longer hours for its success.
There is difference between innovation and invention. Now that I am writing about this, Apple comes to my mind. Xeros were the ones who had invented the mouse, however it was Steve Jobs who made it a house hold item. Currently there are many others who are working on the same tech that Zcash has painstakingly built during all these years. Though I want privacy to succeed but at the same time I do not wish the same fate for Zcash as what happened with Xeros. Zcash teams needs to invent as well as innovate to keep up with other competitors.
I wish all other nominees the best of luck and may we all strive to bring Zcash to new heights for the betterment of society and the common man.
Best,
Prabh