Shielded Assets Discussion

Well said, Shawn! I’m really glad to see this conversation going on.

I just want to re-iterate why ECC cares so much about ZEC.

ECC’s mission is to empower people with economic freedom. Every human deserves dignity and security, and for their consent to be honored. But our current three-year roadmap is about “Building a world-class UX for ZEC”. Why ZEC?

It’s because ZEC is the engine of the sustainable growth of our mission.

Thanks to the Zcash community’s donation of the Dev Fund, ZEC is the primary support for all of our work.

.-----. → .-----.
| ZEC |   | ECC |
`-----'   `-----'

Now inasmuch as our work supports ZEC, this becomes a positive feedback loop! A virtuous cycle.

.-----. → .-----.
| ZEC |   | ECC |
`-----' ← `-----'

The same is true of the (increasing number of!) other orgs supported by the Dev Fund, and in fact the same is true of every company that supports ZEC (also increasing!), all the (numerous, farflung, and increasing) zodlers, and in general the entire Zcash ecosystem and community.

.-----. → .-----------.
| ZEC |   | community |
`-----' ← `-----------'

This is a much better structure for sustainable and mission-aligned development, than the alternative (which a lot of other tokens use) in which funding comes from some outside source, like a big company, foundation, investors, or a rich donor.

.-------. → .-----------.
| donor |   | community |
`-------'   `-----------'

That unidirectional — non-feedback loop — model is not inherently sustainable, and the priorities and preferences of the donor will always “leak in” to the work that the community is able to do, potentially undermining the community’s mission. (In economics, this pattern is called “capture”.)

So that’s why ZEC is the core of ECC’s strategy — because we’re here for the long-haul and for the history-changing mission.

ZEC is the engine of the sustainable growth of our mission.

.-----. → .-----------.
| ZEC |   | community |
`-----' ← `-----------'
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