T.S. for ZCG (June 2025)

After a little bit of encouragement last week (you know who you are), I’ve decided to nominate myself to serve on the ZCG Committee.

My given name is Thurstan, but you can call me T. S. My handle here is @vaspholdings. I haven’t posted on the forums before. But I read here a lot.

I’m a member of ZCAP and ECC’s ZAC, and turn up for online community events when I can.

Like many here, I value my privacy (and anonymity), but this technology and project is important to me so I’m stepping forward. In relation to Zcash I’m tending towards being a champion more than a mercenary - and certainly not just a passer-by.

I’m a decentralisation maximalist, a builder, and a bug magnet.

As a generalist who likes to dig deeply into things, sometimes for years at a time, I’ve got experience and skills that will be helpful to this project.

Vetting and supporting grants and grantees, for major ongoing team efforts that is ZCG’s purpose, that’s very much in my wheelhouse. For one of my previous roles, over a 15 year period, I personally vetted thousands of merchant and supplier applications from 80+ countries worldwide, and was not shy to give needed feedback.

I favour a globally distributed committee (which is what we have now more than ever). And that grantees be paid by staged and clearly defined deliverables, with a bias towards retroactive grants. Pay 'em up front unicorns do exist. But I’m a born skeptic when people are asking for large sums of free money up-front.

More later. Thanks for reading.

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A Bit More Background:

After exiting a fintech company I co-founded, I’ve been working since 2022 as a roving independent consultant for hire. My focus has been on crypto risk, AML/CTF, and a lot of dry, compliance-related under-the-covers stuff for clients.

In my previous company, I spent 15 years as the risk manager with group-level responsibility for onboarding clients and AML/CTF across card payments and merchant-of-record settlements in over 80 countries. All of my professional experience over the past 20 years has involved international, cross-border environments.

My broader background spans 30+ years in real-time financial information and transaction processing, across roles including technical management, software engineering, and leading technical teams.

P.S. Oh yeah, just in case it matters (it might):
I’m an Englishman, British passport holder, and resident in Iceland (an EFTA/EEA country).

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Do you support the depreciation of t-addresses? If so when?

You mention your history of compliance work. Unfortunately Zcash has been harmed by appeasing compliance related requests from exchanges (TEX Binance fiasco for example).

There are thousands of coins with full transparency. Do you support a shielded only future for Zcash?

Thanks

Let’s give all candidates the opportunity to answer this in the ZCG Candidate Call (and afterwards in the forum if they wish).

@Tsupportisharmful I took the liberty of posting your question in the questions for candidates thread.

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