We are pleased to welcome Mark Henderson (@aphelionz) to Shielded Labs as a Senior Engineer. For those unfamiliar with Mark, he previously worked for Equilibrium Labs where he actively contributed to Zcash. He was a ZCG grant recipient from 2021-2022, he led the early development of the Network Sustainability Mechanism, and he moderated the NU5 and Sandblasting Retrospective. Mark left Equilibrium Labs in 2023 for a non-crypto company and is now ready to return to crypto to focus on Zcash full time.
While at Equilibrium Labs, Mark worked on various development initiatives for organizations like Protocol Labs, the Algorand Foundation, and Zcash Community Grants. As a ZCG grant recipient, he received a series of grants for Ziggurat, a network-layer testing suite for zcashd and Zebra nodes. Ziggurat monitors the network to ensure nodes adhere to the protocol, conducting tests, performing network-wide analysis, and providing tools to visualize and improve the network’s performance and security. After Mark completed his work on Ziggurat, I reached out to see if he was interested in contributing to the Zcash Sustainability Fund for Shielded Labs. He helped scope out the project and write initial versions of the ZIPs, laying the groundwork for what we now call the Network Sustainability Mechanism (NSM).
Mark is a seasoned engineer with more than ten years of professional experience and a strong track record of delivering successful software projects. He is joining Shielded Labs because he’s eager to contribute to Zcash and support its ongoing development. According to Mark, “Zcash is my favorite cryptocurrency, both for its technology and its community. It’s the OG zero-knowledge protocol, and I believe it has vast potential for success.”
Welcome to Shielded Labs, Mark! We’re excited to have the opportunity to work with you again.