I’ve been a Zcash hodler since 2017, but as I’ve mentioned elsewhere, most of my dev time has been spent building on Avalanche, and I haven’t been active in the community here until recently. I have done a good bit of thinking about connecting Zcash to other ecosystems however, so perhaps my non-typical perspective on this will add some value.
First, I think Namada is a great edition to Cosmos, especially with a strong Zcash connection. Like everyone else here, I believe, “Privacy is normal,” and should always be an option, on every platform. I believe that the path toward worldwide default acceptance of this principle will come through commercial adoption of zkp services for business applications, and this is why connections to modular platforms like Cosmos and Avalanche are so important, since these are the platforms on which business will want to build. Once both businesses and citizens are using privacy tech ubiquitously for normal purposes, governments will find it impossible to ban.
And businesses absolutely positively need zkp tech. This past Thursday, I was at an event in NYC hosted by BitGo, and the guests were all working in one way or another on transitioning ce-fi to de-fi. When I told them that I was working on connecting Avalanche and Zcash, I repeatedly heard, “ZKP tech is what we need.” There are so many business-to-business use-cases for zkp tech, it’s nuts, and, they told me, the senior decision-makers on Wall Street will not adopt crypto until privacy can be guaranteed. Why? Because that’s how they do business now, in privacy, not with their wallets wide open for anyone with a web browser to examine. They want to expose transactions to specific counterparties in a gradated manner, and this is where zkp tech shines.
So Namada is an important project imo, and I am glad to see with this post the strong desire to not just fork and modify Zcash on Cosmos but to connect the two ecosystems.
Second, regarding the proposed Zcash-Namada bridge, I have looked over your design goals and principles, and it’s reassuring to see that it would work almost exactly the same way as the Zcash-Avalanche bridge that we are proposing to build. Not only is it an indicator that we are probably all moving in the right direction in respect to bridge design, but it also means that the two projects could help each other advance. For instance, in our proposal, Deliverable 2.1 is a series of UML diagrams that will spec out the decentralized bridge in detail. This spec could then be repurposed to build the Zcash-Namada bridge that you propose, with adjustments. This excites me.
Third, regarding the proposed air drop, everyone likes free money, but I urge some caution. (Sorry, I can’t help but picture the Oprah meme!) While I admire what you’re trying to do—connect and reward the Zcash community—as you probably are already aware, a poorly designed airdrop can inflict self-harm if the people receiving the tokens are not otherwise bought-in to your project. If they all sell, your token price drops. A lot.
Avalanche actually did an amazingly good job distributing air dropped tokens when it launched. They didn’t call it an “air drop” though. Before mainnet launch, they did one final testnet launch, Denali, with over one thousand validators participating. I got to participate. We all had to keep a validator running for two weeks and do various tests and upgrades as they instructed, and if we did what they wanted, we would each receive 2000 AVAX which was worth about $1000 USD at the time. For the amount of time it took, it was generous but not outrageous compensation for the work required. But, that 2000 AVAX was locked for a year, and the only useful thing anyone could do with that AVAX for the next year was to stake it on a validator. So sure enough, nearly everyone who participated in Denali continued to validate the mainnet for the next year. But here’s the cool thing—after those tokens unlocked, nearly everyone kept validating. There was no sell-off, no drop in price. We were all firmly committed to participating in the new ecosystem.
So I recommend doing your air drop somewhat like this with the key elements of (1) something (even small) must be done to earn it, (2) the tokens are initially locked, and yet (3) they can be used for in-network tasks, like staking, even when locked.
Hope all that helps!
Kit
fyi: @ZcashGrants