Congratulations to Shielded Labs!
I heard that @zooko guy has good referrals 
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Hey folks! There was an article about me joining Shielded Labs in Forbes. I really didn’t like it. It was negative about Zcash (incorrectly, in my opinion), and I think it misrepresented the positions of some of the Shielded Labs folks. So, I stayed up all night writing my own version. Here it is: x.com Grateful to all of you for your support. 
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Congratulations, guys!
You are a great duo and a great representation of the Zcash spirit.
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Bravo Zooko, Jason, Shielded Labs and ECC 
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The angels rejoice when they see the plumb line in the hand of Zerubbabel
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Shielded Labs is pleased to announce that Awa Sun Yin is joining its Board of Directors. @awasunyin is based in Zug, Switzerland and is the co-founder of Namada and Anoma. Namada utilizes an upgraded version of Zcash’s Sapling circuit, called the Multi-Asset Shielded Pool (MASP), and the IBC protocol to enable asset agnostic shielding for the multichain, shielded transfers, and rewards for users that protects their data. Anoma offers a distributed intent-centric operating system for decentralized applications.
Before co-founding Namada and Anoma, Awa was the first female data scientist and software engineer at Chainalysis, where she led research projects that utilized on-chain data to de-anonymize Bitcoin transactions. She later served as a research scientist at Tendermint where she contributed to the development of Cosmos. She also played an instrumental role in the Ethereum Community Fund initiative.
Awa is strongly aligned with Zcash’s values, particularly in her commitment to individual autonomy and data sovereignty. In a recent blog post, she argued that the word “privacy” is a mistake because it is often misunderstood as hiding information when it’s more about the freedom to control what we share and how much. Awa states that technologies like Zcash and Namada “…are for restoring our freedom to share our own information with whoever we want, for the purposes we care about, to add value to our lives – and the ones we love.”
Awa is a dynamic leader in the cryptocurrency industry. Her experience and alignment with our core values make her the perfect addition to the board. We look forward to the insights and contributions she will bring to Shielded Labs.
Please join us in welcoming Awa!
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Thanks all! Honored and excited to be part of Shielded Labs’ journey!
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Can confirm, exciting and good luck!
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Shielded Labs welcomes Chris Berg to its Board of Directors. Chris is a professor of economics at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, a leading authority on economics and public policy, and a researcher focused on various aspects of coinholder voting. He also has experience working with non-profit organizations and can help advise Shielded Labs on its fundraising strategy.
Chris is the co-founder of the RMIT Blockchain Innovation Hub, which is the world’s first dedicated blockchain research center. He has an extensive background in economics, civil liberties, and regulatory policy, with a focus on the impacts of blockchain technology on markets and governance. Chris also has a rich history in the global movement for liberty and economic freedom, and he is the author of 11 books covering issues such as free speech, privacy, libertarianism, and technology.
In addition, Chris has conducted significant research on coinholder voting. His research examines the economic implications of coinholder voting, including how it influences stakeholder alignment, incentivizes participation, and affects the distribution of power within these networks. Chris has also explored time-weighted voting, a mechanism that adjusts voting power based on the duration of a participant’s stake, which can potentially reduce the influence of short-term speculators. As coinholder voting becomes increasingly relevant in Zcash governance, his expertise will be an invaluable asset to both Shielded Labs and the community.
As a long-time supporter of Zcash, Chris recognizes its significance as a tool for safeguarding privacy and freedom. According to Chris, “Zcash is one of the most important and interesting crypto and blockchain projects - it offers a vision and a roadmap to a world where privacy is just as important to liberty as decentralization. I’m incredibly excited to contribute through Shielded Labs to its future and to the future that it will enable.”
Chris is a distinguished figure in blockchain governance and economics. His deep understanding of the economic dynamics within decentralized networks and commitment to privacy are well aligned with our mission. We are excited to welcome him to the board and look forward to the valuable perspectives he will bring to Shielded Labs.
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@zooko and I will be joining @skyl and @birdify on Free2Z Live on Monday, September 9 at 1:00pm PDT / 4:00pm EDT / 8:00pm UTC to discuss Shielded Labs. Topics will include Crosslink, the Zcash Sustainability Fund, and other organizational updates. Everyone is welcome to join and ask questions. Hope to see you there!
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Very good. I am very happy with this initiative. I had already read about it on some website, but reading this post I see that it is much bigger and much better than I imagined.
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Welcome @awasunyin I know I’m late, it’s a must I pay my respect. It’s an honor for you to join the, shielded labs team. Zcash community is awesome, I see you made contributions to the Tendermint of the development of the Cosmos ecosystem. I’m very exciting to know that you have joined Zcash team, I’m a big cosmos investor Zcash is the only community that, I participated in beside cosmos. I would love to see the two bridge together I’m very proud to have you with us thank you.
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I am excited to announce that @nathan-at-least has joined Shielded Labs as Lead Engineer, where he will oversee the technical development of the Crosslink hybrid PoS consensus protocol. Nate will work closely with Zooko and the engineering team to lead the architectural design and implementation of core protocol features. He will also serve as a liaison between Shielded Labs and the Electric Coin Company (ECC), helping to coordinate on key technical matters.
Nate has been involved with Zcash since the beginning. He previously served as Chief Technology Officer and later as Head of Research at ECC. During his time at ECC, he oversaw key network upgrades, including the Sapling upgrade, which improved the efficiency and usability of shielded transactions. He also contributed to the Halo upgrade, which eliminated the need for a trusted setup and laid the groundwork for future scalability improvements. In addition, Nate helped design Zcash’s turnstile mechanism, which ensures transparent auditing of the coin supply and supports the long-term integrity of the network. His leadership was also pivotal in addressing critical vulnerabilities, such as remediating the BCTV14 counterfeiting bug in 2019.
Given his involvement in Shielded Labs’ two key initiatives, Nate is a natural fit for the team. He is the architect of the Zcash Sustainability Fund, which we started development on last year and plan to implement into the protocol in early 2025. Additionally, he designed the Trailing Finality Layer (TFL) with @daira, which serves as the foundation for Crosslink, and co-authored the TFL Book.
Nate is a brilliant technologist with a long history of contributing to Zcash. We are confident that he will help accelerate our efforts to deliver a safe and secure first version of Crosslink. We are also excited for him to lead other development initiatives in the future.
Please join me in welcoming Nate to Shielded Labs.
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Hi all!
After a good break, lots of family time, and resetting some bad habits and setting up so healthier ones, I found that I really missed working on Zcash!
While on my break I kept at a distance from Zcash (and tried to get offline and irl much more). From a distance I would occasionally check on updates, such as @joshs 's great ECC updates, Arborist call summaries, etc… And I gotta say: I feel more motivated and optimistic that Zcash is on track than ever! The ecosystem is full of believers, both users and devs/community/activists.
From a distance, I see some people moving on to their next thing but I also see new people showing up. This is a big signal to me. 90% of the “crypto” we hear about is “this week’s big splash”, announcements, conferences, controversies, etc… Plenty of new shiny technology. What is it for and how is it changing the world? The truth is 90% of crypto projects slowly and quietly wither away, and 90% of the coolest technology becomes plumbing for a new spin on an old Wall st. story.
Meanwhile, crypto true believers are chugging away as we always have been on moving the needle; not just moving it, but moving it the way we all believe it should: empowering people to have more agency, safety, freedom, privacy. Of that more veteran cohort of “true believer” crypto projects, again, I feel Zcash is in a sweet spot: we’re not in the hype-fueled splash (and scam) milieu of Loud Crypto, but we’re also not stuck in stagnation or dogma, continually pushing ourselves to re-evaluate how we can best push forward our common values. The Overton window of this community continues to seem robust and healthy to me, while staying true to our values.
I also want to highlight some things I picked up on in my time off that I didn’t notice as much being “too plugged in” to Zcash day-to-day: Zcash has a lot of supporters in groups of users who aren’t on this forum, in Twitter, etc… -as well as adjacent projects and communities. In terms of adjacent projects: wallet devs who prioritize self-custody tend to share our values even when they can’t afford the resources to support Zcash, and Dex projects tend to value Zcash, which totally makes sense given shared values. The longer Zcash remains stable-yet-evolving the more adoption I expect to see by these adjacent projects. (Nicer SDKs / APIs, bull markets, and world events can make a big difference, too!)
Speaking of world events: Zcash is needed! Every day, I become more convinced of that, and I wouldn’t be surprised if in the future there are events which cause many people to realize they need Zcash. On the technology side, let’s continue to improve UX and scale much more than it seems like we need to, because I think Zcash should prepare for waves of adoption, and when those waves come it won’t necessarily be fun hype but people in potentially dire situations!
Ok, so that’s my sentiment and perspective from some time off. Now what am I up to at Shielded Labs?
Much thanks to Zooko and @aquietinvestor for getting this going: they initially asked me to be an advisor on what it would take to develop and deploy Crosslink. I attended occasional meetings to give my advice or ask questions. Once Shielded Labs had secured donations specifically earmarked for implementing and deploying Crosslink, I couldn’t resist leaning in.
I’m super excited to be able to focus on this one thing, and one that’s important to me and I believe makes Zcash more resilient and scalable. I felt one of my flaws in a leadership role at ECC was to spread our goals and priorities too thin, and it’s refreshing to see @joshs and @daira 's leadership focusing them on the Zashi experience, including scalability for payments. Also, I must thank @daira in particular, since ze is responsible for the lion’s share of the Crosslink design and security analysis. It also feels great to be able to start work on Crosslink and leverage zebrad from the @ZcashFoundation. Finally, I also feel so grateful and confident in the Zcash ecosystem to keep innovating and growing in a multitude of directions while we focus on the Crosslink transition.
Stay tuned for updates on our Crosslink design & implementation program!
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For transparency, please share the individuals or organizations responsible for the the “donations specifically earmarked for implementing and deploying Crosslink.” We would like to know who is pushing for and funding the move to PoS.
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Please see annoucement below:
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Thank you. Again for transparency, have any of the individuals or entities who provided said funding previously received ZEC through investments, financial arrangements, or other agreements with the Electric Coin Company?
Also, is that list exhaustive or were Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, Vitalik Buterin, and the Anoma Foundation, and anonymous donor the only donors?
No.
Yes, these are “the donations specifically earmarked for the implementation and deployment of Crosslink”, as you inquired.
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