In just a couple months, we’ve seen a wide variety of ZOMG funds being deployed to applications in the Zcash ecosystem, all towards strengthening the Zcash offering to the world.
ZOMG website reads “ZOMG (Zcash Open Major Grants) exists to fund projects that advance the usability, security, privacy, and adoption of Zcash, a privacy-focused cryptocurrency”.
One more way to advance Zcash would be to fund research to establish a reputation for tackling difficult research questions, increase research around applied cryptography and building a strong foundation for Zcash Improvement Proposals by increasing participation to validate and improve the implementation of ZIPs beyond the primary ECC/ZF staff.
This endeavor would require @ZOMG buy in and connections to top academia at universities & research groups who are working on the bleeding edge of cryptography. A chief scientist would be required, maybe someone from ECC/ZF (maybe @chelseakomlo ) to evaluate research groups(with proven track record) for ZOMG to approve yearly funding?
Research Group constituents:
- Senior Research Fellows
- Established international reputation as a leader in a certain area of interest.
- Extensive publication record that includes top venues in their area of expertise.
- Experience in mentoring.
- Research Fellows
- Ph.D. holder in area of interest.
- Good publication record.
- Researchers
- Holder of an M.Sc. or equivalent.
- Works under the supervision of an Research Fellow or Senior Research Fellow
Areas of interest for Research Fellows:
Cryptography
Software Engineering
Distributed Systems
Human-Computer Interaction
Networks
Formal Verification
Trusted Hardware
Economics
Policy and Regulation regarding securities/foreign exchange/businesses/tax laws
Hoping this starts a discussion to put ZIP-1014 funds to good use as when we look back from 2024, it would be good to have generated real world research with the 8% block rewards.
UPDATE: Wording from individual fellows to research groups.