Hi Zeeps!
Over a decade ago, I had a nasty snowboarding accident. I was landing a big drop when the ledge beneath gave way, and I plummeted a hundred feet into a large pine underneath. At least, that’s the story I tell people to seem more like a badass.
Here’s what really happened. I did take a nasty fall while snowboarding; that part is true. I was with my oldest son, who was probably seven or eight years old at the time. He was flying. Kids have a low center of gravity, and it’s fun to watch when they get moving like a rocket ship down the hill. Long story short, I lost track of him ahead of me. As I reached a fork on the slope, he was nowhere to be seen. If he had chosen to go left, he would end up on an entirely different side of the mountain. I hoped he took the path to the right, which is where I headed.
I was anxious. What kind of terrible father lets his little boy get out of site? What if I can’t find him? What if he crashes and is alone?
I picked up my pace, heart pounding, scanning the slopes, searching for him. As I neared the bottom, I saw him standing there. That was the last thing I remember. I must have caught an edge and face-planted. The next thing I recall was picking myself up. The snow was soaked in my blood, my goggles busted, and I was feeling woozy and confused. I had a concussion, my face was torn up from the impact, and over a decade later, I still have a limited range of motion and pain in my neck and back.
Difficult and painful things happen in life that we can’t anticipate, and we often do them to ourselves despite having the best intentions. Sometimes, we recover entirely; sometimes, we are left with scars; sometimes, the pain lingers, and we never completely heal. And sometimes, healing is found in new and unexpected places.
This week, I made another attempt at healing from my snowboarding injury, flying to Austin to get stem cell injections. If you aren’t familiar with the treatment, Hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) and mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are collected from placenta and umbilical cords. When injected into a patient with inflammation, the cells will migrate to the injury site to spur the repair of damaged tissues.
If you have been on the Zcash train for any decent length of time, you know that we’ve endured injuries of different sorts. Some were due to the natural course of pushing boundaries, some because of adversaries, and some have been self-inflicted as we’ve looked to the horizon but failed to see the unseen potential danger right in front of our snowboard.
But today, we are in a season of healing and renewal. Many new faces and projects have recently joined us and are repairing Zcash’s tissues, joints, and ligaments. These new cells are finding ways to contribute to and elevate the project and the community, inspiring and spurring renewal. And there couldn’t be a better time. More people are talking about the need for crypto privacy every day.
The partnership between Zashi and Flexa has significantly increased wallet downloads and engagement over the last couple of weeks. Qedit announced that they are ready to merge their code for Zcash Shielded Asset (ZSA) support, which will be rolled out in 2025. More voices like @squirrel are entering the conversation about Zcash governance and funding. More projects like Sheilded Labs are contributing code, further decentralizing development. The new batch of ZCG nominees are more diverse than ever. The ECC team is working cross-functionally (front-end, back-end, comms) with the Keystone team to bring hardware support for shielded ZEC to the masses. Maya, Brave, Chainsafe, and others are bringing new capabilities to life and communities into the fold.
The ecosystem is growing with renewed energy. Can you feel it? This isn’t your grandpa’s Zcash Zeeps! I’ve never been more bullish on Zcash than I am today. Unstoppable. Encoded. Inevitable.
Here’s ECC’s contribution to renewal this week:
This week was heavily focused on Keystone integration as we collectively pushed to get this over the finish line.
Zashi
Design
- Adhoc engineering edits and requests
- Continuing design efforts for Home Screen designs, Send/Receive screens, and Maya Integration → Swap)…
- Working on finalizing Zashi-branded Keystone artwork designs
- Final adjustments to Zashi video graphics
- Additional adjustments to Integration screens
Zashi iOS
Keystone Integration:
- Finalized SDK multi-account support
- Successfully adopted PCZT on the SDK side
- Implemented all SDK changes on the Zashi side
- Implemented and tested PCZT flows
- Many iterations with the Keystone team, firmware updates, and testing
- AddressBook supports multi-account Zashi state
- Implemented Roboto Mono font for displaying addresses
- Updated Settings flows
Analytics Update:
Unique Installs: 5.12k
Total Downloads: 6.06k
AppStore Rating: 4.9*
Zashi Android
Keystone Integration:
- Finalized SDK multi-account support
- Implemented all SDK changes on the Zashi side
- Adopting PCZT on the SDK side
- Implementing and testing PCZT flows
- AddressBook supports multi-account Zashi state
- Firmware updates and testing
- Updated Settings flows
Analytics Update:
Total Install Base: 2.96k
Total Installs (incl. Open Beta): 10.8k
PlayStore Rating: 4.622*
Zcash Core
The team has been working with the Zashi and Keystone teams to complete the capabilities needed for Keystone hardware wallet support. This work has included developing and supporting PCZTs, SDKs, and zec-sqlite-cli. Additionally, the team completed an initial security review of the Keystone firmware and provided feedback for issue resolution.
Other
I’ve pulled together the draft agenda for the Z|ECC summit in January. It’s packed, and I’m excited to share it with you soon!
Met with Brave on work progress. The UI for shielded support is still under development, along with support for the encrypted memo file storage. Brave will join the ECC team at the Z|ECC summit in January.
I met with @ebfull about his scalability research and our activities.
I participated in a conversation on the future of Zcash governance and development funding, which was hosted by @aquietinvestor , @decentralistdan , @Dodger , and @squirrel . We specifically discussed the zBloc.
I will join the AMP community for a X spaces on December 20th to discuss the Zashi Flexa integration.
We are in the midst of interviews for a new strategic marketing manager.
We’re looking for someone to join our core team. Check out the job description and apply here.
That’s all for this week.
Renewing.
Onward.
