There was no inherit stipulation for the founders to return any of the reward to the project. Beyond that you’re free to come and go as you choose without fear we will organize retribution for having been “forsaken”.
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Does all community feedback when queried for “Questions” for candidates get disrespected this aggressively? God sake I’m not calling for blood samples and public disclosure of social security numbers.
My suggestion is a relatively standard financial disclosure concept that exists across various national regulator market frameworks (both in public and private contexts).
Reminder! Community Call with ZCG Candidates is Tomorrow June 21st at 19:00 UTC(Noon PT, 1pm MT, 3pm ET) on the Zcash Foundation YouTube Channel:
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How do you handle disagreements on your team?
How do you keep your team motivated despite conflicts and obstacles?
Is your leadership style reactive or passive?
What qualities are lacking among the present ZCG committee members?
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What do you think of Ethereum’s ethos
How will the ZEC holders get incentives from new partnerships?
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Nice to meet everyone on the call today. Expanding on what I said earlier and happy to answer any follow up questions anyone has.
This primarily boils down to adoption: consumer adoption fueled by developer adoption.
For developer adoption:
- Being able to spin up a zcashd instance in a repl-like fashion (a la jsbin, jsfiddle, sqlfiddle, et al).
- Recruitment of developers through sponsored job posts such as: remoteok.com, which can advertise/raise awareness of the dev fund (I think lots of people just aren’t aware of it). Even if they don’t end up building something for the platform, that’s another avenue of discovery of a potential new Zcash user. I became more enthralled with Zcash through ZECPages.com.
- Promotion of novel cryptographic breakthroughs such as @daira’s Pasta Curves, explanation of how the trusted setup removal was possible with recursive proofs, etc. This kind of stuff the HN crew and other engineering focused platforms (lobsters maybe?) can also bring more eyeballs => developers to Zcash. A promotion that the community is funding ideas and a link back to the grants page would also help.
- Investing in the ZGC website a bit more. I know it had a recent makeover and looks massively better than before, but now working on making it rank highly for SEO for the current grants that were funded. It’s a tool and can be used to our benefit if used properly. Perhaps also shining the spotlight on previously funded grants and giving a sort of “Shark Tank” like update for them in a blog post or similar. Ziggurat would be a good first candidate for this, IMO.
In summation of this point: Steve Ballmer Developers, Developers, Developers - YouTube
For consumer adoption:
- Good wallet, or wallet(s). Preferably many, so there isn’t a single point of failure should there become an issue with that. Also – would be nice to follow up with Ledger to see what the 2 year old grant status is.
- Faster wallets. ZECWallet is a great experience because it’s quick. Unstoppable on the other hand, feels clunky, and the constant syncing is not a good user experience.
- Integration of shielded transactions in the real world, and more in general, would help convince people to jump into the shielded pool (more users = more entropy).
My experience working with different product teams as a product engineer at various companies/startups throughout the Bay Area for > 10 years (and having built personally long before that), gives me a fairly accurate representation of the true engineering costs (time, resources, and money-wise) for projects and proposed grants. @Angst01 also brought this up, but being personally invested with my retirement incentivizes me (just a little 
) to see it succeed.
I’m fine with disclosure. I think it keeps people honest.
I hold: BTC, Algorand (I like zk-proofs and it’s good to keep an eye on the competition), and Zcash. Zcash is by far my biggest holding (quantifiably, so). In fact, I converted almost my entire retirement over to it using https://altoira.com. Shout out to Alto IRA, it’s the best.
I think they will look similar to today, as today looked similar to the past 5 years, etc. I think the demographics will/are changing. Unbanked nations (South America, Africa, etc) are starting to embrace it more and more. It’s moving from the early cypherpunk days, and becoming more “legitimized” as a financial instrument every day.
Fidelity, Alto IRA, and more are offering ways to invest in tax-advantaged accounts which were typically limited to traditional investment assets (stocks, bonds, precious metals, etc).
The scammers will still be around, but they will be smarter. There will still be chains with large exploits, but I think and hope that Zcash will have been able to add another 5 years as a battle-tested zk-snark implementation in the wild with billions in total value locked (TVL).
This was one of the hardest questions for me to answer. No one likes to see their investment on shaky ground with conflict between organizations. It adds one more level of stress to an already pretty stressful industry (let’s face it most of the grays on my beard started when I embraced crypto). With that said, as long as there is progress, and the community is thriving, I think generally most people will get along and be happy. It seems that the drawdowns in the cycles which we’re currently experiencing brings out the pessimists. I’m absolutely guilty of this, but I think just learning to understand that it’s going to happen and having a plan that everyone agrees to can be helpful.
I’d go with ZF Grants - Shielded Dialogues for now. I haven’t seen any progress made, and it isn’t a trivial amount of money. Additionally, it seems like the applicant is even working on new projects unrelated to Zcash.
I would liked to have seen @Ziga’s ZEMO product. ZECPages is really the thing that got me interested in how useful Zcash can be, which in turn led me to the forums, and attending past aborist calls, etc. While it may have been ahead of its time (wrt universal addresses), I do think that some sort of social private chat application/website is really something no other privacy project has done, and I think being creative product developer, @Ziga could have built something that would fulfill that need, or even inspire another grant which would.
- Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
- Commando
- Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers
- Misfits (Danzig)
- John Steinbeck
- Bjarne Stoustrup (kidding… kind of…)
See above.
Answered yours above.
It would be great to speak at Zcon(#?) and giving an overview of what was previously funded, how it worked out, and promote the dev fund a bit to those listening.
If I’m the one disagreeing, and I feel passionately about it, I would try to present my argument with research, facts, and logic. Alternatively, the inverse, if it’s the other person who is in disagreement. I would hope to be presented with facts and logic rather than an argument based on feelings. Although gut feelings are important in their own right.
I think seeing progress is the biggest motivational factor there is. Looking back and celebrating milestones in previous companies was always a good feeling of accomplishment. Ultimately, that’s what the committee should strive for. The better the money is spent, the better the community becomes (in theory).
I would say between these, probably neither. More proactive than anything. I had to actually look up what the “archetypes of leadership” are and it seems like I’m a mix between more strategic out-of-the-box thinking, and innovating (focusing on the future). But if someone is explaining something to me, I like to be as passive as possible before reacting, as everyone deserves to have the floor to prove their point(s).
This is a tough question that I can’t realistically answer because I have only really known @BrunchTime. From what I can tell you are all doing a great job.
Their core beliefs or their operating system? I don’t really have any opinions on either. I think Zcash is its own community with its own personality (albeit small for now).
The more “stuff” there is to do on Zcash (aside from private transactional money), like QEDIT’s ZSAs implementation, the more appealing it is to people. “If you build it they will come”. ZSAs will allow programmability and with that comes DeFi. This will open up the door for liquidity providers earning interest and other utility to the product that you already own (consider it like an in-game map upgrade).
I think that covers most of your questions. If I skipped you or you want more clarity, I’m happy to give it.
Good luck to my fellow candidates!
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I would like to thank everyone at ZCG & the ZFND for setting up the community call today. I really enjoyed participating in the discussion. Regardless of if I am selected I continue to be excited about what Zcash has to offer society and individuals. I was very impressed by the thoughtfulness and enthusiasm that all of the candidates showed today and I think each of the candidates will bring unique strengths to the committee. I wish all the candidates best of luck and I look to forward to continuing my engagement with the community!
Please feel free to reach out if you have any additional questions.
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Thanks to all the @ZCG_Candidates for all their insightful and thoughtful answers to the questions. (including the tough ones). The Zcash community should be proud that we have such quality candidates running.
Thanks to @decentralistdan for chairing the call.
As my question didnt make it onto the call I will give it another go:
What do you see as the governance role of ZCG in a more decentralized ecosystem?
Do you think ZCG should one day be a fully independent third entity?
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My bad! I totally had this written down in a textfile in case it was asked on the call.
It would be nice to have everything fully decentralized with 100% community governance. Maker does a decent job on their DAO.
If we move to PoS (which looks likely), it could enable a more decentralized grant program (especially when these rules can be programmed into a smart contracts with ZSAs).
Or maybe, it becomes a hybrid of PoS stakers, ZCG committee, and ZCAP all having 1/4 weight with the ZFND and ECC having another 1/4 that governs the decision of grant voting. In that case maybe a multi-sig wallet can be useful, but managing the keys might prove to be problematic: (Multisig Wallets Can Keep Your Coins Safer (If You Use Them Right) - CoinDesk)
Ideally there would be some humans helping facilitate things (online <=> meatspace coordination, etc). Kind of like how there’s a human driver in all the “self-driving” cars. Sometimes you just need human interaction. I love tech, but I’m not quite ready for the singularity!
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Glad to see we’re keeping this conversation going - I appreciated the opportunity to hear from my co-panelists and think together about some important questions facing the community. I wanted to take the opportunity also to respond to any questions I was unable to address during the call, and also to try to take on a few of the additional ones here that weren’t asked live without being redundant and restating too much from the call, previous forum posts, etc. I’ll address the ones I’ve read up to the point of starting to write this out.
A lot of that depends of the nature of the team, and the disagreement. Broadly speaking I will encourage everyone to participate in problem-solving to the extent of their particular strengths and expertise, and work to try to understand the specific skill sets and limitations of everyone I work with. We all have them. It always helps to approach teammates as working to the best of their ability with the information that they have and operating in good faith. Reasonable minds can disagree about many things and I personally think it’s very important to promote team dynamics and support each other’s priorities and feelings which can sometimes take precedence of having the last say or the most sway over things. That said, sometimes people (including me) are just wrong about things and I’ve never been afraid to say so or acknowledge my own lapses and errors.
Taking the time to understand everyone’s particular goals, incentives and alignments. Conflicts on teams generally arise when people feel unheard or as though they are being made to pursue/facilitate objectives/priorities that they don’t align with or believe in. Keeping lines of communication open and working to help teammates and other stakeholders feel (and really be!) heard, taken seriously, and supported.
I like to think that it is neither one - I try to identify and stay ahead of potential problems and conflicts before they arise. To the extent that there are limitations to that and issues inevitably arise, I guess I’m not really passive - it has never been my experience that ignoring a problem or conflict makes it go away.
In truth I have to say that I know the current ZCG members only by reputation, forum posts, and a few limited conversations so it’s challenging to know the answer to this with any great certainty or depth. There is definitely a bias towards people with stronger technical background, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing but certainly frames discussions in certain ways. That said I know @aquietinvestor is, like me, someone who comes from a somewhat different background. More diverse representation from within the Zcash community I do think is something that is called for - particularly people who are not completely in the dark about the technical aspects of things, but might be able to understand or empathize more fully with users who may struggle with or be turned off by certain aspects of the current Zcash ecosystem UX. I think most of us agree that attracting developers is a priority - but so too is focusing on interfaces that make it attractive for merchants to accept Zcash, and for consumers/investors to buy/hold/exchange it.
The Big Lebowski
12 Monkeys
Meshuggah
Infected Mushroom
Neal Stephenson
David Graeber
Least favorite proposal funded - RenZec bootstrapping on Binance. To be clear I think that this was a great thing in of itself, but that there were issues with the grant. I think that promoting ZEC Defi integration by adding liquidity is a fantastic idea, but this particular proposal I think was too small to succeed and needed ancillary support to make sure there were people aware and able to take advantage. As someone interested in ZEC’s role in DeFi, it strikes me as problematic that I would have had no idea this was happening if I wasn’t following the grant proposal. That said, maybe it was better off being a small experiment with a limited follow-up because of the hack that followed it. So I guess its my least favorite that I’ve kept my eye on, not because of the cost or because of ZOMG’s decision based on the information at the time, but because of the limited impact and the subsequent hack.
Kind of addressed this in my candidacy announcement - I agree that this is stuff we should address as candidates to assure the community our incentives are aligned with them, but also not really compulsory or even verifiable given that such an approach would run contrary to the purpose of Zcash.
Yes I am currently holding Zcash. It’s all relative - Barry Silbert wouldn’t think it was a lot. But to me it certainly is.
My cryptocurrency portfolio is ~75% Zcash. I also hold some Ethereum, Bitcoin, and Algorand in roughly equal amounts. I own some Coinbase shares within a basket of other stocks in a large-cap US Stock Market ETF. I am not otherwise invested in anything directly pertaining to the crypto space.
I am currently passively invested in a number of “tradfi” institutions, primarily via ETFs. To my knowledge none of these are presently directly in competition with Zcash in any material sense. Though I will say that some of them offer Zelle - the similarity of Zelle’s logo with Zcash’s could someday be an issue especially with increasing overlap in the payment space. Already rubs me the wrong way.
NCIA’s 10th Annual Cannabis Industry Lobby Days - I think the Cannabis industry is in a very uncomfortable and dangerous situation with regards to banking and physical security/safety. Even though the businesses are legal and fully complaint, payment processors and some banks remain hesitant to engage with cannabis businesses for fear of future regulation or lack of regulatory clarity. So many businesses are forced to deal with large cash transactions confront the hassle, expense, and danger of moving physical cash which continues to hold back the industry. Likewise customers may not feel comfortable with the level of financial surveillance around these perfectly legal, aboveboard transactions. This is an industry and community that could be a model of the advantages of using ZEC for payments and as a value store. So I’d love to talk to them about how they can do that. Perhaps with some support from @pitmutt with Z-Go!
Happy to address any more questions thrown my way either via DM or publicly on my candidate thread. Best of luck to all and looking forward to the election!
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