https://www.law.gmu.edu/faculty/directory/fulltime/verret_jw
I would be interested to know more what Professor Verret thinks about governance issues unique to Zcash.
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Appreciate the nomination lawzec. Started a twitter thread with some thoughts on why I hope the community will give me a chance to serve. If everyone has more questions Iām glad to answer them. https://twitter.com/JWVerret/status/1574158257543081985?s=20&t=YgG2EA6DabK5I2KGRYYKzw
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Welcome to the forum.
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If yaāll have more questions, glad to chat on the forum here, or shoot me a memo on my z address. zs1u7m0thayst4ckz03x7j42l8x5c4qgr4n7nef2wlgw2kfx06spdch2pm3gxs3u3v7prwnzqffazr
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Iād like to add my support for Professor Verret as a ZF Board Member, and second the nomination.
Professor Verret has a truly distinguished background, and adds meaningfully to our community by his presence and participation. His substantial background in financial regulation (including work with both the SEC and the US House of Representatives Financial Services committee) is always helpful, but particularly timely. He brings an unusual but extremely valuable skillset with dual specific expertise in legal/regulatory as well as economic and financial matters.
I have known him to be a thoughtful and constructive member of our community, attentive to the interests of the full gamut of stakeholders, and think heād make a great addition to the ZF board.
Thanks for bringing forth the nomination, @lawzec.
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Nice to have you here, Prof.
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Welcome to the forums, Prof.
I think we need new contributors in the ecosystem and will support your candidacy.
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I can share a few podcasts if youāre doing diligence on commitment to the privacy cause:
Crypto regulation and financial privacy with J.W. Verret - YouTube, honored to be the first guest on the awesome z2z podcast!
Did something with Defi Pulse today. Money Legos: Over-Regulation or Light Touch? The Future of DeFi Regulation ā ft. J.W. Verret - YouTube
If you watch both of those youāll learn more about me than you wanted to know.
Commitment to privacy matters for this role, and commitment to the Zcash project matters most of all, and it should be a pre-req to get eligible candidates in the door.
Once thatās established, I would submit it becomes more about bread and butter governance, compliance, budget issues. And there may be other candidates more qualified than me to handle those.
I can share a bit about how I would approach them.
Conflicts of interest come up when software developers serve on a non-profit and also develop side projects in the same field. And Zcash community has seen those already. The fact that building runs into conflicts of interest is in itself normal and that should be encouraged.
This is not the only industry where it happens. Both for-profit and non-profit corporate governance law has developed some tried and true tools to navigate this. Disclosure, shareholder (or here tokenholder or community member) votes, independent director review. We can harness those tools.
I donāt have more definitive views until I get more feedback from this community and from any future colleagues on the ZF Board. But that is how I would approach conflict issues if you are interested in my participation in that capacity.
And if not, I will look work other ways to support Zcash. Because, full disclosure I own a lot of Zcash and want to see the project succeed for that reason. And because being able to transact privately and shield assets is very important to me and I want to protect that freedom.
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Iād like to thank JW for putting his hat in the ring. It is a big benefit to get someone who so clearly cares for Zcash to step up for an active role in governance. He has been a big supporter of outreach efforts and certainly helped Zcash already with his activity on social media and in other arenas. From my interactions with him, heās been very open-minded, enthusiastic, and cordial. These are critical factors for success in a group enterprise like Zcash.
In addition, it is a plus that he is an (from what I can tell) active user of Zcash. Being a user of Zcash is the best way to see how the high level efforts occurring connect to the most visceral element of using Zcash wallets. We need to take care of the entire stack of Zcash - from policy discussions and outreach efforts to user experience. JW seems broadly experienced in this regard.
I look forward to future discussions with all nominees about the directions theyād like Zcash to go in. For now, thanks for your willingness to get involved.
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Hi Prof J.W. Verret,
As a potential Zcash board member how will you shape the direction an agenda of the foundation?
What are your thoughts on ZCAP?
What are your thoughts on coin holder voting?
Should the ZCG be completely indepentent from Zfnd?
Should ZCG be legally located outside the USA ? (India?)
Should ZCG diversify its coinholdings outside a USA held zaddress?
Thoughts on building bridges between strong egos between Zfnd & ECC?
Thoughts on how to hold zcash community together with the next big updates of proof of stake, ZSA?
How does zcash service the economically poor individuals in our global society?
Ideas on attracting diverse talented individuals into the ecosystem?
Lastly, if in two years time I was to ask you what are you most proud of in your time with Zfnd, what would it be?
Thanks for sharing your ideas
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Thanks for some great questions.
Where I would start is I want to know what you and everyone else in the community thinks are the right answers to your questions.
I wonāt try to totally get off the hook with that political answer, and I will offer some preliminary thoughts below. But I care what you and everyone else thinks, and I might be wrong, if so please tell me why you think so.
The ZGās participation weighted voting seems like a good approach. Iāve been an active participant in some DeFi communities, Iāve seen some direct token holder voting works well, some doesnāt. Majority rule can sometimes be the road to tyranny.
We can do a better job of listening to token holders though. (And Iāve learned a lot from reading this recent piece a few times, as a Cosmos user it resonated)
I share the frustration that many posting on the community forum have shared about the issues caused by the attacker. My Nighthawk wallet is still unusable. Since I switched to YWallet things are working a lot better, and post Halo wallets have improved a ton and some awesome work has been done, but still none of the wallets in our ecosystem are at a point where the average normie can use them for privacy. So anything we can do to support those on the front lines of the wallet UX effort is important.
Zcash and DeFi coming together is the most exciting project on the horizon from my perspective. Itās good for ZCash and itās good for DeFi.
Aztec, Secret, Monero are all rushing to own the intersection of privacy and DeFi, we have the leading privacy solution in the world and we can dominate that area. Anything ZF can do to support that effort seems a priority.
Itās good for us and itās good for DeFi, I am not comfortable about how just about everything I do in DeFi is built on one surveillance coin or other. Supporting those who are building toward interoperability with DeFi generally seems like a top priority.
We should find ways to continue to support projects like Zcash Africa, Zcash Asia, and Zcash South America. Thatās the future of global adoption more than the US.
In those countries where BTC is actually living up to the ideal of protection from inflation, they should be Zodling instead of hodling. BTC as a surveillance coin in countries with capital controls is a threat that isnāt well enough understood in places like Argentina. We gotta support those who are able to get the message out about that internationally.
Zooko has blogged about interactions with China, it would be great if we offered more support there. Itās the right thing to do. And, the narrative among policymakers needs to be that Zcash is a freedom coin that defends against oppressive regimes. I know we already make that clear but we can do more.
I wouldnāt overstep to suggest where Zcash should diversify to, but the opsec concerns with being US centric in the recent piece by Sacha St. Leger certainly resonate.
Iām the last person you would want producing a Tik Tok clip or rap song, but we should continue to support people who know how to do that. Zcash media is already doing some cool stuff. We need to get to the point where Zcash is a meme in popular and particularly millennial culture for value (and a meme for wealth and status, silly as that is.)
On the question about bridges between ECC and ZF, I wasnāt able to go to Zcon3 this year but watched what was online. Seems like a collegial group. Best guide for that is just to always remember that the two groups are in a shared long term iterative game of negotiations with similar long term goals (and always be nice.) This role requires loyalty to the specific interests of ZF which to me weighs more community than token holder in situations where they are in conflict.
Iām not a dev or a technical expert, Iām an ok user, mostly just a lawyer and financial regulation policy guy. I try to protect the interests of devs and users, but I know the limits of my knowledge. On technical issues I recognize I would have a lot to learn from board colleagues and ZF team if given the opportunity.
You asked what Iād be most proud of. This is gonna sound cheesy, but if we run a poll in two years ādid he do all he could to defend privacy in his time on the boardā I hope Iād be able to have pride in the results of the poll.
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As far as I know, the Monero protocol is not being modified to accommodate DeFi. There are a few projects under development the swap coins with other chains (ETH<>XMR atomic swaps, Haveno, Serai). IMHO, present-day DeFi is not good for anything other than gambling. I am not aware of DeFi touching the real economy (term used in its technical sense) in a meaningful way.
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Hey Rucknium, thanks for the feedback.
My description of Monero as seeking to accommodate DeFi was based on listening to the Monero Talk podcast interviewing the founder of Serai. And he seemed to view his project as a sort of native-Monero DeFi project. But you may be correct that my description was inaccurate in my prior post.
I take your point that it is early days in DeFi, particularly with respect to DeFi touching the fiat economy. But the MakerDao loan of $100 million to Huntingdon Bank gives me hope that DeFi is on a path to touch the fiat economy as it develops an economy of its own.
And in any event, whatever growth trajectory DeFi is on, DeFi needs a privacy solution, and I want to help the effort to ensure that Zcash is that solution.
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I reached out to the Zcash international handles on twitter to ask for feedback about how we can help them.
Twitter handles are maybe a rough cut on how to encourage international feedback to Zcash forum but itās a start.
Hereās feedback so far on this thread:
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Welcome @ProfJWVerret! Just logged to say that I think he would make a great addition to the ZF Board.
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I am extremely excited on @ProfJWVerret ās nomination for a seat on the Zcash Foundationsā Board of Directors.
I have been following his work for some time (from the viral video confronting Gary Gensler here to the great Op Ed in the WSJ here).
He has truly a distinguished background in accounting, finance, securities, corporate, banking law and economics. He also has extensive experience of working with and within government and in the corporate world. A fierce defender and advocate for Economic Privacy, Sovereignty and Freedom. open minded, articulate, constructive, competent and energetic. He is a committed supporter and active Zcasher. He even has three different CPZ for different modes hereā¦
The perfect mix of degen and suit (if I mayā¦)
I believe he will be a great addition to the Zcash Foundation BoD with his vast skillset.
I support Professor JW Verret
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I support J.W. Verret, he should be a great addition to the ZF.
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Thanks JRGB. I try to live up to your description of āThe perfect mix of degen and suit.ā Appreciate you saying that, thatās my goal ser. Seems like a mullet ābusiness in the front, party in the backā meme is necessary, will crowdsource that with an ask to our community for their favorite.
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