Resetting Zcash: its about privacy, not scale, econ, dev funds, or governance

General
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Zcash has lost its way. I noticed this reading the leap frogging taddr thread.

Zcash is an ASIC minded PoW coin with a 21m supply. The only thing that differentiates it from, e.g., Bitcoin, is privacy. Not the dev fund, not governance, not all the brilliant people we have. Those all are in service of the one differentiator: privacy. That is the banner that brings people in.

Privacy is what we need to advertise to people, its what we need to be believe. Its what we need to focus on to get adoption. Because it’s the only thing that sets us apart and its our massive strength. We have the world’s best privacy tech and some of the best cryptographers and engineers building it.

But, we’ve lost touch with that. Our zeitgeist is more cryptocurrency economics, experiments, and contrarianism, not privacy. We keep talking about and marketing things that don’t help. It’s an anti-vision.

To name a few:
Scale won’t get us adoption: we’re already more scalable that bitcoin and its not used. Scale is how you handle more users once you’ve gotten them in. But you have to get the users. And yet, the community spends huge amounts of time focusing on that.

Increased t-addr support won’t get us adoption. Even increased t-addr usage won’t get us any additional adoption. No one will like at another thousand t-addr transactions on zcash and go “oh, now this thing is taking off.” To the contrary, they will look at Zcash and go wait the privacy coin has no one using its privacy features.

Halo won’t get us adoption. Zcash post halo is the same for a user as it is pre halo. Sure, removing trusted setup is nice, but it doesn’t change anything. Even the trusted setup FUD. Because both before and after halo, you can’t audit the coin supply. There’s always hidden inflation risk. Halo may be necessary, but its a necessary evil in so much as it takes community focus away from our one differentiator: privacy.

Wrapped zec won’t get us adoption. It’s very important as a bridge into Zcash particularly if exchanges delist us. And indeed I think it’s critical for other reasons too. But no one will use the bridge unless there’s a reason to use Zcash.

Theories about ZEC holders, values, fees, or governance … won’t get us adoption. Every cryptocurrency has some special story about their economics, incentive models, or governance. No one cares and we got no special ability, skills, or renowned there.

The one thing that does matter for cryptocurrencies is a sense of shared mission and community. And the one we can actually rally around and make our clear zeitgiest, the thing that we stand for and talk about, is privacy. And we have world class privacy tech. But if you looked at ECC, its stated plans, this forum, or shielded adoption rates, you wouldn’t know it. We can’t even agree on a simple thing like that our vision should be zcash with only private payments and no taddr support, however we exactly get there.

It’s about privacy stupid.

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Thank you for writing honestly and directly about what I have been saying for 2 years now, what is happening behind the scenes should stop and rallied by one goal and having funds for this, the developers and the fund, and now ZOMG, should hear potential and remaining supporters of ZCASH to become a community! (my thoughts on the usefulness of T addresses remained the same, but I agree that when they cease to be useful and this should happen, then they need to be abandoned). The change in the direction of work should make it so that the project could exist and develop in the first place, for this it would be good to approve the main indicators by which it is possible to determine growth and success, and to do an analysis every month.
What actions and changes bring growth and what not and what to do next, 4 years in my opinion passed in vain, during this time it was possible and necessary to seek acceptance not by exchanges and exchanges, but to recruit a large number of users and supporters, who were subsequently united by one idea could make real economic freedom for all.
I personally would like to conduct an analysis of adoption and adoption for the first 4 years with checkpoints, it is important to understand what was done that was beneficial for adoption and what was not, so that in the future there would be no mistake and not make mistakes. I consider a slide from ECC on the distribution of zec on leading exchanges to be incomplete without other indicators, to achieve that the goods are in all stores and no one buys or uses it cannot be a business plan for a successful company!
(Supply, availability and need, of the required 3 components, ECC and the fund implemented the first 2, without the need for sense 0)

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Z addresses are a double-edged sword. If we can get every exchange, store and regulator to allow them then great, we should move to them sooner rather than later. If we can’t get them accepted then we have to make the decision if we want to do it anyway to increase the overall privacy. Will Monero users then go to Zcash or are they too tribal?

Crypto is still not used very much. Zcash just needs to be positioned to be the most useful, most scaleable and fastest when adoption starts arriving. After Halo is completely done with recursive proofs and is Z address only it will be ready to serve that purpose.

I think eliminating t addresses would be a great discussion to have next fall. Let’s see how many Zec are in the shielded pool by then. It is still early. The ledger wallet support is not even finished yet. Let’s get that perfected and I wouldn’t doubt that over 5 million+ ZEC would be shielded by next fall. The more ZEC in the shielded pool the easier the decision will be.

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When will the introduction of zcash into the lives of ordinary users begin? If you do not create an increase in the number of users, then next fall there will be a question about a lack of funding, as soon as the correction of the zec market begins to fall below what is necessary to continue, and when the reserves of money accumulated over the past period are exhausted, it will end, because no one will finance the development of 1 million a month from the side. The calculation for the current moment from open data was given in the next branch.

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Thanks for opening up this thread, I agree that Zcash is about privacy, and that current rhetoric around Zcash does not fully reflect that. For an outsider, Zcash might as well be a token with privacy as the sales pitch. I think too many efforts are spent to play well with existing top coins by market cap. Wrapped ZEC on ETH is just a side featured of a cross blockchain framework, not a sales pitch for Zcash & interoperability of T-addrs with BTC code structure doesn’t help make use of Zcash’s privacy.

For 2021, I want to see bold users of Zcash who share the advantages of using ZEC, instead of taking the approach of convincing BTC or other coin hodlers to buy some ZEC, I don’t think ZEC can compete on the grounds of the price graph of BTC or ETH. It needs to compete on its merits.

To push for true innovations on top of Z-addrs, much advocacy is needed across the lines of adopting Z-addrs for every new user. Right from exchange withdrawals to z2z usability.

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I agree with a lot of what you said. In particular, Zcash needs to be positioned for when there is a moment But, the crucial point is the only positioning to be done is on privacy. It’s the only thing that makes Zcash stand out from a why would you use it or invest in it.

But when many people say things like this, we aren’t internalizing are one value.

It’s not that you’re wrong, there are dicey questions about how to best to deprecate t-addresses. It’s that everyone starts the conversation by hedging on Zcash’s core identity. And I don’t mean to call you out on this, everyone does it (even me once or twice). It’s a question of ideals, not technical road map or jockeying for position with other cryptocurrencies. It’s a mind set issue. And we keep shying away from that because … well its awkward to acknowledge our one actual piece of identity isn’t used yet.

Personally, I think thats fine: there isn’t really http for money yet, so why would there be real use of https for money. But we can get there, the moment will happen and if it takes a while, we can do privacy for stable coins or tokens/defi in the meantime. But we have to agree on our identity first.

It’s privacy stupid.

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At first, I think you need to learn how to work with what you have and then change, hoping for the best, next year the fund plans to attract companies to test the zcash technology if I’m not mistaken, it would be good to look at the result, if the result on the adoption of z transfers is positive, then you can force the transition. Again, I do not understand why this work is not done every year since 2017.
Thinking is formed after observation, and not vice versa, if, on the contrary, it is a fantasy, now we are in a fountain that everything is going towards the adoption of zcash, all 4 first years, as the ECC articles convinced me, zcash is going in the right direction and now it is being implemented next year all the preliminary work in practice, I believe that zcash held on to ideas and now there is no idea as such, but there are successful competitors and users do not choose zec.
Again, the hallmark of zcash was still a team that was supposed to realize the potential and simultaneously increase the number of users, but the team went on the path of technical excellence hoping that distribution on exchanges and posts and training meetings about what zec is would help spread technology, but not happened, and there was nothing to rebuild, because the main thing is not the result, but the process is visible.
Zcash feels bad both on the field of transparent transfers (losing to BTC forks) and on the field of secure transfers, and I think that focusing on one direction will not give an incentive because using the same methods does not give a different result (use other methods to consolidate the result in one direction for clarity of efficiency and already by example it will be possible to make plans).
I would start by answering the question “Why should I buy zec”, see what is missing (wallets, exchanges, secure storage, moments of use …), establish a clear implementation plan, look at the number of users (increased / decreased) go to second phase: large players (companies that share the idea and use it in practice (these are clearly not exchanges that make money on exchanges, but companies in the role of users and on an equal basis with everyone else), this will add confidence. Everything should be clear and understandable for everyone.

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I believe that what you write, @Anton1, and what ECC does are important. ECC are focused on the technical core: scalability and all that is listed @secparam is all important. But, fortunately, this is not the only structure, we already have three structures that are provided with funding.

Marketing and mass training of z2z is something that you need to pay attention to now, when finally there are many wallets with support for zaddr. Even hackers who yesterday withdrawn 40K ZEC with EXMO apparently don’t know about z2z, because they conducted their operations completely through transparent addresses… What can we say about the mass users.

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We have 3 structures, yes, but the first 2 for a period of 4 (3 years for the fund) did not achieve mass adoption (exchanges do not count because, as we apparently do not accept acceptance by exchanges), the last ZOMG made 0 in 1 month of work (nothing funded and 0 proposals in the thread on the forum!), if this goes on, then zcash will have no future, it doesn’t suit me, but I won’t sit and wait for worldwide recognition or social media to promote zec, because the problem is not in it, but in the approach of the teams that does not give what is needed to continue the project.
The further, the more it seems that all these performances are made so that the price does not fall too quickly, and the development of the project is no longer in question, only promises, in the next branch read what I am writing about “ALL IN ZEC”
Potential users are not informed so this is a miscalculation of the company’s PR from ECC in my opinion and not someone else’s.

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Actually, there is one: Zcash Node and lightwalletd Running PoC Proposal - #31 by holmesworcester

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Everything that is offered there apparently does not deserve attention because the meetings 1 time in 2 weeks did not reflect this in any way?

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We can reward zec stored in the shielded pool, similar to lock-up?

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2 posts were merged into an existing topic: Brainstorm of potential grant concepts/ideas

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Problem statement:

  • Most people do not understand Bitcoin. Some actually think it’s anonymous/untracable.
  • Most people do not know Zcash.
  • Most people do not know that there are two types of Zcash addresses: shielded/transparent.
  • Most people do not bother to use Zcash shielded since no popular (n multi-currency) wallet offers it right now. (I like Unstoppable but it’s not a popular wallet). Which compounds to the next problem.
  • As a privacy chain, most transactions on Zcash since the beginning has not involved shielded address. The single aspect of Zcash that separates it from other projects and no one uses it (let’s be fair, 5% is closer to 0 than to 25%).
  • Some people who likes Zcash and wants to store ZEC for a long time in a secure device with decent UX i.e. hardware wallet, can only store it in transparent address. Not including the concern of turnstiles (which I like but added complexity to general public and developers).
  • Some people who knows about shielded address does not know about viewing key OR does not understand how to use it OR does not even bother since it’s an added complexity. How many block explorer support viewing key? Is there any popular tools to integrate viewing key in a website or for reporting purpose? e.g. for a non-profit donation or tax-reporting.
  • Some trolls are actually spending too much time distracting the community from discussing the important matters.

I am not writing this to mock the efforts of ECC/ZF/ZOMG or any other contributors. I am optimistic of Zcash and it’s community but it now becomes clearer to me that we do have a lot of problems that needs to be solved.

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Good points, all around.

I have come to understand that most folks don’t care about the mission of cryptocurrency in general. They are here to make a quick buck. And that’s understandable in a sense, we live in hard economical times. The only thing they care about is profit from speculation. They couldn’t care less at this point about shielded, viewing keys, full nodes. This is just nonsense for them and they won’t even stop and think for a moment what are they actually doing because they are blinded by greed. 99.9% of cryptocurrencies are completely transparent, meaning that everyone in the world can see what you are doing. This is just crazy. If you tell anybody that there is a bank which offers a transparent account that anyone in the world can peek at it, they won’t touch it. Though, they don’t think the same about cryptocurrencies, because it’s all an illusion of pseudonymity. You don’t get to appreciate privacy unless you need to, this is the issue.

Anyway, this rant is to echo that the general narrative on cryptocurrency is wrong and, in the end, we are just some weirdos trying to provide privacy to everybody :slight_smile:

But, to hell with everybody, we will try.

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You are only partly right, many people believed in zcash at the initial stage, precisely because of the arguments that you voiced, and yes, many came to just make money, but this does not explain the fact that zec is very poorly popular among ordinary users, this year, even the goal was recognition and popularity, and everything went under the flag of development and the great success of continued funding, many people who are interested in cryptocurrency may start to share values, but they will not because no one will give them information.
I try to describe in detail the problems from the side that is not voiced in the official articles, zcash is now doing very badly, at the current stage I believe that without a sharp reversal in 2 years there will be a lack of funds to continue, but how do I know, and from there that there are many ways analysis of the situation, the first four years did not show positive dynamics in acceptance (it was all natural because there was a lot of money), but what will happen when zec continues to go down in rating and in price, it will probably lose value and interest from ordinary users because he cannot do what he was created for (at the moment, of course)
For four years zec has been systematically becoming an asset exclusively for speculation: there are no wallets, no popularity, not used as a storage medium, but added to all leading exchanges! Some argue that adding to the stock exchanges makes it possible to buy, but this is not so because in order to buy you need to know why, and if there is nothing left, you just have to buy on a fall in order to sell on a rebound, which we see until the current day, and the situation changes is not going to, but a funding bomb is hidden from below, the passage of which will give news of a lack of funds and that’s it, stone down (or is there such a goal that could be sharply bought up and turned around?)

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Who may not have enough funds and how does this threaten for Zcash-mission?

I’ve never seen any complaints about this from any ECC member, but a lot of people worry about it all the time. (Transparency reports have all the informatio.)

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Brilliant post summing up the problem statement, kudos!

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And you will not see, as well as posts on all current problems. It says that the remainder is 7.1 million, now at the current price ECC gets less than it spends, when they declare they have to spend 1 million in 2020, but in the first half of the year they spent 500 (saved), words do not match the action and you want to What did they say, we brought zec to exchanges for sale, we do not advertise the product in order to work and not attract attention, we will get as much as we can and then the community problems if there is at that time? Well, I think there will not be such a statement, but now the question is, if the price continues to fall for another 4 years, what then?
Above everything is written correctly, I just add what else can ruin the picture when those problems only increase due to competition.
The task of the community is to say whether such a plan will go or not, at the moment everything is going as if nothing had happened, imagine that zec will start to fall from $ 100 when the market growth ends, and will probably end next year, they will simply then say that there is no more money and no one will sponsor for such amounts of course (it took 1.2 million to launch, and then ECC spent so much a month, now only they need 600)
Many believed that a reduction in two would bring us a price increase, I said that this would not happen, but it would only get worse because miners would not dig negative for a long time in principle and the network would begin to lose complexity, while it was still profitable, but the price for zec was too high and we are still in 40th place, and I will remind you at 34 before halving, if bitcoin finds a movement up or down, then we will go lower, because volumes will fall, then delisting from exchanges, but we can say that when it will then we will solve problems, but they will no longer be solved. As proof, I can cite the fact of assets in shades of gray, look at least at the capital by coins, the higher the popularity, the greater the asset (with the exception of Stellar, but in general what it does is not clear), it is on this basis that large players buy coins with low capitalization no one takes)

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8 posts were merged into an existing topic: Radical “to the moon” thread