I’m excited to announce that @zooko will be joining Shielded Labs as Head of Product, where he will help lead the development of Crosslink and transition Zcash to a hybrid proof of work/proof of stake consensus protocol. Zooko will also join Shielded Labs’ Board of Directors to assist with fundraising and strategic planning.
Additionally, we are pleased to share that Shielded Labs has received generous donations from Zcash holders and supporters including Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, Vitalik Buterin, and the Anoma Foundation, as well as an anonymous donor. These contributions will help us execute on our mission, expand our initiatives, and partner with ECC to prioritize the development and implementation of Crosslink.
Funding
Shielded Labs is an independent, Swiss-based organization dedicated to supporting Zcash. Our mission is to develop new use cases for Zcash, increase user adoption, and contribute to protocol development. We are currently the only organization within the ecosystem funded solely by donations, without ever receiving direct or indirect funding from the Zcash Development Fund.
Given our unique position in the ecosystem, I announced earlier this year that Shielded Labs would not seek funding from the Dev Fund. Instead, we are committed to securing funding directly from Zcash holders and supporters. While we acknowledge the value the Dev Fund brings to the ecosystem by providing a reliable source of sustainable funding for development, we believe Zcash should also explore alternative funding sources. As a new and emerging organization, we believe our approach represents a significant evolution in funding Zcash development. Our goal is to remain independent, lead by example, and inspire other Zcash contributors to look beyond block rewards for funding.
Shielded Labs’ donations-based funding model marks the beginning of a new era for Zcash, and we’re excited about the possibilities ahead. The Zcash community is much larger than many realize, with a growing number of users, holders, supporters, and developers around the world. I believe this network will continue to grow significantly in the coming years. This growth will create opportunities for new sources of funding, providing an alternative approach to sustaining development.
Zooko
I first met Zooko in June 2021 when I was serving as a moderator in the Telegram community. During our first conversation, Zooko and I spoke for two hours and shared our long-term visions for Zcash. In particular, we both believed the ecosystem should better support ZEC holders. We were strongly aligned on the importance of ZEC the asset, which can create a positive feedback loop that drives adoption, development, innovation, and sustainability. Furthermore, Zooko and I both firmly believe that Zcash is not an academic experiment whose innovations will benefit other cryptocurrency projects rather than itself. Instead, Zcash is a highly functional protocol with the potential to become the mainstream alternative to Bitcoin as a private store of value and medium of exchange.
Over the past few years, Zooko and I have stayed in close contact, often discussing issues related to Zcash community and governance. After reading my Forum post in February where I first mentioned the possibility of continuing as a donations-based organization, Zooko reached out to support that idea and express an interest in joining Shielded Labs to help further decentralize development.
Zooko has been a pioneer in the crypto space since before Bitcoin existed and has long been a prominent figure in the cypherpunk movement. He’s an accomplished computer security expert that brings over two decades of experience in cryptography and decentralized systems. His unwavering belief in human freedom has driven his dedication to developing and supporting privacy-enhancing technologies.
I’m thrilled that Zooko is joining Shielded Labs and will contribute his skills and energy to advancing our mission. He will undoubtedly generate strong momentum for this organization. Although we’ve never officially worked together, we have a strong rapport that gives me confidence we will accomplish great things for Zcash.
Our shared goal is for Shielded Labs to become a core contributor to Zcash on par with ECC and the Zcash Foundation. A central part of our vision is to support projects that empower ZEC holders. We’re also exploring the possibility of integrating coinholders into some of our governance and decision-making processes. We’ll share more details in the coming months.
Operations
As mentioned above, Shielded Labs will partner with ECC to accelerate the development of Crosslink and transition Zcash to a hybrid PoW/PoS consensus protocol. Crosslink implements the Trailing Finality Layer, which ensures that once a block is finalized, it cannot be rolled back. This enhances the network’s security and enables new use cases such as safer cross-chain bridges and staking ZEC for protocol rewards, allowing holders to become users of the network.
Shielded Labs met with ECC last week to discuss the existing project roadmap. Our immediate plan is to hire three engineers to build a prototype, with Zooko overseeing the project as Head of Product and me serving as Executive Director of the organization. We’ll provide more specific details in the coming weeks, likely starting with the Arborist Call on August 22.
We’re also focused on delivering the Zcash Sustainability Fund (ZSF), which we started developing last year. The ZSF is a modification to the issuance mechanism that enables deposits of ZEC from the circulating supply into future block rewards to help sustain the network. The European-based Equilibrium Group is leading this development effort. They have nearly completed the Zebra implementation and are also working on an implementation for zcashd. Our goal is for the ZSF to be included in a network upgrade in Q1 2025.
Additionally, we have two new non-US members joining the Board of Directors, which we’ll announce next week. We will also have an open call for an additional non-US board member in the coming weeks. As Shielded Labs is a Swiss-based organization, our long-term goal is to have a globally distributed team, with a majority of non-US employees and board members.
Shielded Labs is excited for its next chapter and looks forward to continuing to support the Zcash ecosystem. We’ll provide additional updates to the community as our plans progress.
Thank you for your continued support.