Shielded Support for Ledger Hardware Wallets (NanoS+, NanoX)

[conradoplg]

@Jgx7

@zooko this may be a scenario or situation why gas/fees are so important. when i move my ERC tokens out of ledger, i get charged for gas. those charges are what helps to support the ecosystem and valuable use cases like ledger support.

Gas fees go to validators (formerly to miners). They do not help support the ecosystem or use cases like ledger support, at least not directly.

[Jgx7]

we need a split fee system in place so third party organizations can create and support zcash. this is how visa, mastercard, stripe and paypal work. also how apple works. it’s a split fee arrangement. i don’t think anyone has come up with anything better yet. and it’s how you get hundreds if not thoudanss of independent people and organizations working on projects.

[hanh]

@Jgx7

now maybe i just don’t get it; but i don’t see how the organization taking over this role gets paid without permission or the risk of ZCG or other centralized entity saying no in the future.

The proposal clearly identified Ledger as a risk. Personally, I would not sign up to do the work and be only compensated if a third party decides so.

[Jgx7]

@hanh

The proposal clearly identified Ledger as a risk. Personally, I would not sign up to do the work and be only compensated if a third party decides so.

connection to the edge is a business all by itself. visa doesn’t manage the edge. third parties get a split fee to manage the hardware at the retail locations. visa is the backend network. so when we pay 3% to visa, they have to split it with the hardware and banks. 3% is too much. but their business model is right.

it’s just too much work to do it all. and we already see it because ECC and foundation are telling us it’s too much. what we are missing is the fee structure to bring in third parties on a permissionless and decentralized manner.

if we we knew we get 1% for all zec transfers out of ledger for example (i’m making up a number), you and i might say. let’s do it, we will fund it all, support it. and we will do it for metamask, trezor and as many others as we can. do you see what i’m saying? right now people have to ask for a grant . and the funding might not be there and maybe there is a lot of transactions we are missing out on by not supporting ledger.

[pkr]

@hanh

Even more so because I believe that Zcash faces difficult times, but instead of working together, it appears we are working against each other.

I blame weak leadership coupled with the incentive to maintain control.

@zooko

here is a quick brainstorm of potential candidates: Zcash Foundation, Nighthawk Apps, Equilibrium, Shielded Labs, Zondax, Red Dev, Qedit, and finally… Ledger itself!

Doubt Nighthawk would do it due to animosity of a competing project. Filecoin Foundation seems logical to add to the list. But it’s really sad that you are prioritizing building a brand new wallet vs. getting something to the endzone when it’s on the 1 yard line. And the policy advocacy stuff is political theater. Why even waste money on it? Crypto is ultimately global, so the thinking should be outside of the confines of it.

[hanh]

You have mentioned this several times already. We told you it doesn’t work because the fees are too low. Of course, if you compare it with Visa which has millions of transactions per day, they can function on fees alone. But how do you get there?

It seems that your logic is circular.

If zcash has millions of transactions, it would have a lot of fees. We could pay development from these fees which would make the ecosystem grow to millions of transactions.

But right now, zcash has 100 USD/day in fees.

[Jgx7]

@hanh

It seems that your logic is circular.

it is circular. that’s called an ecosystem.

transactions create transaction fees, fees pay for development and that creates more transactions.

there is no viable fee structure in place today, as far as i can tell. block rewards is not a long term viable solution.

the fees are not low. the fees are high. we just obfuscate the fees by taking them out as block rewards. if we canceled block rewards and accounted for it as a transaction fee,’they would be higher. it’s an accounting game the way we do it… and then we could divert the fees to the highest and best uses cases directly to developers who create products that generate transactions. like supporting ledger!

[pkr]

Ok, let’s keep on track here with solving this Ledger Hardware wallet issue.

Can someone who runs the Zcash X account put out a tweet/post/whatever asking for sponsorship? Maybe get Vitalik or some other high profile accounts to re-post it? I think that’s the least these orgs can do to help.

[zkcroc]

I dont understand why this is so elusive and has been just out of reach for so long, this will do more for shielded tx adoption than any other development being funded, its importance cannot be understated

I feel like if zondax was brought back into the fold on this it would be like reinventing the wheel and back at the start again. Surely the most efficient way forward is for hanh to see this through to the end through his own entity.

Does ZCG have the powers to tentatively allocate funding for maintenance?

[pacu]

yes, I agree. What I implicitly meant, is that it all would have to be formalized further than the usual grant. But it seems that we are in a situation where Decentralization meets Centralization and we as any other “Ledger App Developer” need to pass the through their gates.

I can’t avoid to recall that I had mentioned this “legal” risk when this topic was created.

@pacu

I don’t doubt the capabilities of the developer of completing the grant. But I think that it is a mistake to pursue any developments without a written and legally binding commitment of the Ledger Company of certifying the shielded support once its audited with high priority and in a reasonable timing.

Ledger support developments have been done before by other teams and it was a failure because hardware wallet companies wouldn’t make the development available to their users.

The grant should be conditionally approved to that legal contract being obtained. Even grant more money for legal support to achieve that if needed.

There’s no point on spending valuable developer time and Grant Funds into a project that a company can thumb down and ban without any consequences.

It’s not that I have a crystal ball. It’s my experience as “Apple Third Party Developer” that gave me the scars to know that when you are in this kind of engagements, you “submit” apps in the various meanings of the term:

submit | səbˈmɪt |
verb (submits, submitting, submitted)
1 [no object] accept or yield to a superior force or to the authority or will of another person: the original settlers were forced to submit to Bulgarian rule.
• agree to refer a matter to a third party for decision or adjudication: the United States refused to submit to arbitration.
2 [with object] subject to a particular process, treatment, or condition: samples submitted to low pressure while being airfreighted.
• (submit oneself) consent to undergo a certain treatment: he submitted himself to a body search.
3 [with object] present (a proposal, application, or other document) to a person or body for consideration or judgement: the panel’s report was submitted to a parliamentary committee.
• [with clause] (especially in judicial contexts) suggest; argue: he submitted that such measures were justified.

We both send the software to be approved and also we have to be submissive to their terms in order to get in.

Sadly, when you submit software to walled gardens like Apple, Google or Ledger in this case, you have to “bend the knee” or GTFO. It’s sad, it sucks, it goes against all the DeFi core values. But that’s what it is we have to choose.

If the community chooses that we all want HW wallet Support with Ledger, I as a Zcasher, would hope that we can have a “Developer Entity” that represents the community before Ledger that can be easily recognized by other Zcashers and crypto users. It would be the optimal thing, because it would be an entity that can, not only be trusted, but also would have a verifiable reputation.

If all this matter is this muddy and complicated, it tells us one thing: that we can’t “patch things up”.

I’m concerned by the idea of bringing up some placeholder or shell company that endorses an independent developer to ship the Ledger application software. I can think a few points about why that would be a horrible idea:

• It’s not serious. Zcash is top game, we can’t act like amateurs.
• it would empower an unknown party to have huge leverage over the Zcash community, ZCG and ZF.
• exposes us to a “broken phone game” there are many intermediaries to get something done, entropy piles up and problems arise and then no one takes the blame.
• The arrangement of the ledger app submission has to be sustainable over time, no only because the vendor requires so, also to show Zodlers that their funds will be safe, that the updates required to be up-to-date with the Ledger platform changes will be carried on as required and that this app will work long-term

I know in my own flesh that ECC and ZF don’t have much resources. No one has to explain that to me. But the fact that grants have been approved on this matter means that the investment is worth the spend. I don’t know if hardware support will make “price go up” happen, but I do know that holding self-custody shielded Zcash is a nightmare, even for me that I’m supposed to be an “expert”. And It’s a no-brainer that this difficulties hurt adoption. And adoption is the core of the Zcash mission. That alone should be the fuel that let’s us reach consensus over an arrangement that is professional, sustainable and secure for our users.

I trust that the actors involved in these discussions will find out the ways of making this happen.

[pkr]

Didn’t Gemini implement shielded withdrawals at one point? Could they sponsor it?

I think it’s ironic that @zooko mentions the ECC is overloaded with work, but how about the org that actually pulls the strings?

Why isn’t @Dodger stepping up here and making moves? Zcash has the connections, but the Foundation lacks haste.

[gottabeJay]

Shielded Support for Ledger Hardware Wallets (NanoS+, NanoX)

Since I am one of the parties closely involved in this, please allow me to chip in. We all know that the price of ZEC has greatly dropped over the years. It is but a fraction of what it used to be. This clearly puts a lot of pressure on the entities that depend on the devfund. Therefore I understand the position of the ECC and the ZF. If they didn’t have the resources to promote Ywallet a year ago, then for sure they don’t have the resources to maintain the Ledger integration now. However, isn…

Jack, Zooko, and senior devs, please listen to the community. Soon there will truly be nothing left.

[hanh]

As I recall, you wanted Ledger to enter a legal contract to bind them to publisher. Ironically, it is the other way round. They want the ZF or the ECC to legally enter a contract with them to provide ongoing support (not maintenance).
Imo, it is not a matter of being busy but priority. I have been providing support when needed. I am still helping people migrate from zecwallet lite even.

[Jgx7]

@pacu

But it seems that we are in a situation where Decentralization meets Centralization and we as any other “Ledger App Developer” need to pass the through their gates.

what you fail to see is we have our own centralization issues. there is no mechanisms for a zcash team to take this over without our own centralized organization to guarantee ongoing support. And since they won’t do it, we are left in limbo.

This is centralization meets centralization. if we were decentralized you would just do it. but you can’t because you don’t have the funding.

decentralized development would have a fee associated with moving tokens out of ledger, trading, swapping. those fees at a transaction level would go to the developer of this use case to pay for ongoing support. so if it was built into the protocol or code associated with ledger, you would get 10 cents per transaction (for example), and you could do the math to determine if it made sense for you to create your own company to build the code and support it. Instead all the money goes to a centralized organization and they get to decide if this makes sense or not. The failure is on our side not theirs. it’s smart of them to protect their brand and customers by making sure the integration is supported.

@pacu

I’m concerned by the idea of bringing up some placeholder or shell company that endorses an independent developer to ship the Ledger application software. I can think a few points about why that would be a horrible idea:

agree 100% this is a terrible idea for all the reasons you mention.

[pacu]

@Jgx7

what you fail to see is we have our own centralization issues. there is no mechanisms for a zcash team to take this over without our own centralized organization to guarantee ongoing support. And since they won’t do it, we are left in limbo

I don’t, I know we have centralization issues, but I believe this is not the case. Maybe I didn’t explain myself properly. Let me expand a bit.

The problem, as I see it, is Ledger centralizing over a developer of their choosing. Zcash is decentralized enough to work on this specific issue. Ledger is the one that has the last word on who will be able to publish or not. ECC or ZF could wake up tomorrow and say “hell yeah we gonna ship it” and Ledger could still say NO for whatever reasons. That’s main issue. ZCG could grant the money to Zingo, NH, Zondax, Shielded Labs, Filecoin, you name it, yet, Ledger could say “well, no we don’t like that Org becasue they faved a tweet from Trezor last week” or whatever (I’m exaggerating to make the point).

Also we are talking about Apps that move billions, there are many things that could go wrong besides technology itself.

Is there a clear path on what’s the process for replacing a designated developer for a given currency for another? Who will decide it? That’s why I think the Approved developer can’t be “just anyone”. It has to be a very important and trusted actor of that currency that has its strategy, mission and vision tied to the good results of the development of the Ledger App.

Imagine a commercial org could be submitting an app for “ACoin”, and then some time passes and it’s board is acquired by “Enemies of Acoin”. Then they choose to deliverately boycott “ACoin” App on Ledger and start a campaign to demoralize Acoin users to switch to “Dcoin”. What would happen? What’s the procedure to ask Ledger to ban that rogue developer jeopardizing Acoin’s users?

The core problem its Ledger and its walled garden, as well as the Googles and Apples of the world.

Let me give you another example:

Two weeks ago my Ywallet App didn’t update because an App Store error. I was not able to update to the version that mitigated the mempool issues. I just couldn’t update because of my region. I had to use another version of Ywallet to use Zcash because the Apple platform decided not to deliver updates for Ywallet for a given version on a given region I happened to be born and live, bummer.

Zcash had done decentralization right. We have many independent app developers. I had Zingo, Ywallet, NH and Unstoppable to choose. Thanks to @hanh making the extra effort to support Mac Binaries outside the App Store, I could workaround the issue. Zcash was not the problem, Apple was. I was momentarily DoS’ed because Apple didn’t let me update. Hahn had done everything right, and he provided support to me so that I could figure the issue and take another path and get my stuff done.
That’s what I mean by Decentralization meets Centralization. Once you get to the doors of these walled gardens Decentralization has no effect to them, it’s their rules or nothing.

[Jgx7]

@pacu

Decentralization has no effect to them, it’s their rules or nothing.

we can do better than them. but they are customer driven companies. they tend to think about the customers first. and it’s not perfect. but they dominate because they deliver the products people want consistently.

@pacu

Zcash is decentralized enough to work on this specific issue.

You could certainly prove to me that we are decentralized. all you would have to do is show me how a third party could create the ledger code and be guaranteed a payment stream related to the developed ledger code that doesn’t require any approval from ecc/foundation/grants or anyone else.

so can we charge a fee inside ledger for all zec transactions to help support the ledger app? i say apple is decentralized because i can build on top of their code and charge people whatever i want. can we do the same?

that is, can we charge fees inside the ledger code in addition to what zcash gets. i might even pay for organization and support if i know we can make it back over time on the transaction fees. if we can, ill partner with you on it

[pacu]

@Jgx7

we can do better than them. but they are customer driven companies. they tend to think about the customers first. and it’s not perfect. but they dominate because they deliver the products people want consistently

Yes, that’s why they can impose their rules. If they didn’t have such a large user base they wouldn’t be able to impose anything.

@Jgx7

You could certainly prove to me that we are decentralized. all you would have to do is show me how a third party could create the ledger code and be guaranteed a payment stream related to the developed ledger code that doesn’t require any approval from ecc/foundation/grants or anyone else.

I don’t think this is about decentralization, you are referring to financial sustainability. As for decentralization, Hahn said his code is open source and anyone with the knowledge can grab it and try to pass through Ledger’s gates.

@Jgx7

so can we charge a fee inside ledger for all zec transactions to help support the ledger app? i say apple is decentralized because i can build on top of their code and charge people whatever i want. can we do the same?

Apple had originally a 30% fee before taxes on puchases on their store for years, then they lowered to 15% if I’m not mistaken. They review every in-app purchase and your prices need to follow a matrix they impose. Apple is not decentralized at all I’m not following.

@Jgx7

that is, can we charge fees inside the ledger code in addition to what zcash gets. i might even pay for organization and support if i know we can make it back over time on the transaction fees. if we can, ill partner with you on it

I don’t know. I’ve used many apps from ledger and neither of them charged a premium for its use or sent additional outputs to “donation addresses”. How do those coins managed to jump this hurdle?

Zcash doesn’t need to reinvent the wheel in everything.

Cardano: GitHub - cardano-foundation/ledger-app-cardano: Cardano Ledger App for Ledger Nano S. Apparently shipped by Cardano Foundation

Solana: GitHub - LedgerHQ/app-solana: Solana app for Ledger Wallet forked from Solana Labs repo

Filecoin: GitHub - LedgerHQ/app-filecoin forked from Zondax Filecoin repo

[Jgx7]

[
can we add a transaction fee into your code for transferring zec out of ledger? so it’s free to transfer in. but we charge to transferring out, and for swapping or selling inside ledger. if we can do this, I would like to discuss forming the organization to take it on. with ledger, trezor, and others, there is probably a business here.

i just tried to send a 30 cent token out of ledger and the gas was 1.5. that’s how ethereum does it. they have a decent profit on every transaction and then they burn coins with the profit.

filecoin has a fee model as well. they charge people for storage. so the customer storage fees pay for the ecosystem.

don’t know a lot about solana; but they are going for high volume transactions. my bet it’s a fee model per transaction. my understanding is they are going for many thousands of TPS. so it’s a high volume low fee model.

we dont need to reinvent the wheel, we need to use it ( the wheel).

these are not donations, they are mandatory fees. we need an ownership mindset. isn’t decentralization about decentralizing ownership? we create the ledger connection and we charge fees to support future development. we are only doing it because no one else will. we can’t do it for free, not even zcash developers work for free and zcash doesn’t have the money to take it on because other priorities are taking up all the funding. therefore we need to decentralize further and enable third parties to step in to the void.

[pacu]

I wanted that the actual outcome of the grant ensured that all legalities were met so that the app will be effectively published and we didn’t end up in this situation, that being ledger bound or the other way around.

My point is that finality of the grant was people getting their ledger live and seeing shielded zcash there. that being the development itself plus, supporting the grantee with all the resources needed for that to happen in terms of legal requirements , even if it meant law firm fees

[pacu]

Those are network fees that validators or miners get. Like the fees Ywallet, Zingo or NH show when confirming a transaction submission it does not mean that they get the money themselves.