The Cambrian Interface Explosion

General
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I was at the meetup at the Edge offices in San Diego yesterday. I heard some speculation about why now is the moment that Zashi is launching. I thought I’d offer my perspective (which I of course immediately did), last night, and have now (minimally) refined, below.

Some time ago… approximately 500 million years ago, if I recall correctly, the evolution of (cellular) life underwent a non-linearity. For the preceding billions of years of its existence it had been testing out a few basic configurations built around the information processing engine implemented in DNA (Rust) in its core; finding-and-fixing bugs, optimizing processes, and innovating on the core capabilities of the distributed consensus system that each genome-chain was.

Then something radical happened, even though there was some legacy unstable RNA (C++) still in the core, different genomes began diverging rapidly in 3D design space.

We’re in an analogous moment in zcash design space. The core the core information processor is stable enough to build out in new dimensions… indeed new kinds of dimensions.

That’s why the @ElectricCoinCo 's Zashi is a welcome addition to the User Interface space. I’m very excited about directions different projects are exploring like it and @aarnott 's eZcash but there’s just too much space for us to explore by ourselves!!!

Of course, there is another consideration which is that each of the orgs exploring the design space need funding.

I think the ECC has a relatively large/stable base for funding its project, in the short term, but ZingoLabs is in an increasingly difficult position. Fortunately I see a simple solution to this issue!

By canceling @Qedit’s @ZCG grant to add surveillance mechanisms, to the Zcash blockchain inside the ZSA pool we can liberate 600_000 USD (I am told) which can then be redirected to me.

I’m an excellent choice for the stewardship for this money because I have a well-established track-record of allocating the funds I control-or-influence to enhancing zcash, with MINIMAL inefficiencies (for things like buying my daughter used tennis-shoes from the discount bin at Savers)… or paying rent in relatively low cost-of-living locations in order to free up funding for the Zingoista movement.

Qedit will, of course, be free to seek funding from an agency (perhaps the NSA, or Mossad, or Chase Bank) with a mission more aligned with the project of building surveillance mechanisms!

Everyone wins!

Thanks for your consideration.

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wJdDAj

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OK… maybe you’re not onboard to send me 600_000 USD-in-ZEC just because I think it seems like a “good idea”.

But… and I’m looking at you @ZcashGrants who thought it was a good idea to fund what I hear are anti-thetical to the CypherPunk ethos technologies?

@conradoplg @daira @gygaxis are you aware of the work that’s proposed in the currently “funded” Qedit ZCG grants.

My sense is that this is somehow… “flying under the radar”. Maybe I am misunderstanding what’s at play, so I am requesting help from deeper ZK-o-mancers.

Please correct me if I am wrong, but my belief is that there’s a FUNDED ZCG proposal that aims to build something. Is the following true or false:

Qedit is funded to build a technology that would allow a third party access to information without the User's explicit prior consent.

Is this true?! Please clarify. @_jon what’s this all about?

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i think @daira was very critical of it in one Arborist call.

some long discussion on it starts there: https://youtu.be/KtVvt3lis6o?t=2682

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Has @nathan-at-least said anything? What about @Dodger ? @amiller ?

I vote we figure out how to defund the grant… at least until there’s more clarity/consensus.

@ambimorph ? Has the community thought this through?

Is a mistake being made?

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I’m aware and I also don’t like it, it’s essentially a backdoor. But I wouldn’t say users won’t be aware, since they’ll know beforehand whether a particular token is backdoored or not (and the mere existence of the mechanism will basically coerce every issuer to enable it). In any case it was not my call to make.

Arguably, however, that’s the only way to make it happen otherwise regulators will have a fit

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I don’t think this is necessarily true, and centralized issuers of stablecoins especially will already require it (and they are in highest demand), but decentralized and non-stable issuers won’t have to. I’m happy we’re funding ZSAs development, but I don’t think we should be making this excessive-disclosure path easier or prioritized. Not perfect but on balance I do prefer this tradeoff to nothing. The discussion should continue and should be visible to everyone so thanks for bringing it up

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In this thread: defund ZSA, hand money to @zancas, shade on Qedit, ZCG

not the best premise for an actual discussion :confused: but i’ll do my best.

my thoughts:

  1. i don’t understand from this thread what ZingoLabs wants to build
  2. I don’t know why ZCG decided not to fund ZingoLabs, there’s $2M+ at ZCG for funding projects (Zcash Community Grants Dashboard - Google Sheets)
  3. QEDIT is currently proposing core features to allow stablecoins issuance and user control on ZSA, working on publishing the design first so we can get very early review
  4. if the community thinks it’s a good move and a version of the ZIPs is accepted, then we’ll build
  5. in our proposal, users can chose not to use a given stablecoin. a user that does chose to work with a fiat-backed stablecoin is already subject to regulation because the underlying fiat is in a regulated bank.
  6. these stablecoins would offer better confidentiality than transparent ERC20 tokens, but they can’t compete with the privacy of ZEC.
  7. i agree that the design space for zcash is huge, and many other directions for R&D exist that could make the ecosystem relevant and thriving. QEDIT is focusing on the most impact with ZSA, and a big part of interacting with the “real world” is adding features that aren’t cryptopunk-core.
  8. luckily in ZSA you can experiment without impacting the rest of the ecosystem
  9. we’ve been discussing the ZSA roadmap at every occasion with the community, in the open, at every Zcon, in online calls, as much as we can.

Zcash is the most diverse community we participate in. in this community, QEDIT has its own distinct voice. we join many others here in valuingthe need for privacy, the respect of the individual, and the absolute integrity with regards to technical promises to the users. but we’re also proposing features that account for the inevitable interaction of Zcash with law-enforcement, and confront these real-world scenarios openly. please don’t mistake this for a backdoor - by accounting for law-enforcement as actual stakeholders, we’re trying to bridge worlds that don’t have much in common for the sake of the robustness of Zcash itself, in the “safer” environment of ZSA.

hope that helps.

/jon

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Has any stablecoin issuer confirmed that they are going to deploy stablecoins on Zcash after you have created the compliance tools @_jon?

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I’d like to issue a ZSA without the ability to view what people are doing with it. Could I then have a contract on some other chain that allowed exchanging the ZSA for a fixed amount of stablecoin? I guess the hardest part is finding a reliable bridge to another ecosystem where the ZSA could be swapped for a mainstream stable coin. How far are we from something like that?

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Surveilled ZSAs are pointless. There is no market for them. Launching this would make Zcash the laughing stock of the industry.

It’s reckless to assume that a stablecoin issuer will keep their surveillance key private and never share it with a blockchain surveillance company.

I guarantee that “only the issuer can see transactions” will mean “blockchain analysis companies will be monetizing their proprietary access to Surveilled ZSA transaction history.”

The market wants a private stablecoin. Who cares what ZSAs are launched. Some will be great, some will be scams.

Get ZSAs live, make sure that they don’t compromise the human right to privacy, and let the market decide which ZSAs end up being popular.

Define and launch our ERC20, stop micromanaging what tokens are launched. And at all costs: don’t walk the slippery slope of building a backdoor into some ZSAs, but not building that backdoor into ZEC.

Once you deploy a backdoor feature on Zcash’s “tokens” you open the door to being compelled to deploy the same backdoor onto ZEC itself.

Define and launch the ZSA standard. Don’t issue any ZSAs, let the market do that. Never compromise on the human right to privacy.

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By which you mean, the design, right?

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Well said. Baking any surveillance options into the chain should be a non-starter. I don’t understand why this research was funded and wish ZCG would have engaged the community before making this commitment.

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Other than having the grant open for discussion for months on the forum, do you have a specific suggestion for more engagement? A poll? (KIDDING!)

Some of your own previous feedback was positive:

The current decision was not to fund the implementation grant, at least for now, but to fund the design, which, I think, is exactly what @emersonian is arguing for above, and what I think your previous comments would imply. Are you thinking about it differently now, or have I misunderstood somewhere?

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I’m supportive of something being built on top, further up the stack. People are free to experiment. The Zcash protocol itself must remain pristine.

If the ZCG is going to fund major work that impacts the core protocol, it’d be nice to provide something like a tentative approval and directly ask the community and core devs for feedback.

Note: @_jon asked me about it before they submitted the proposal and I told him the same thing. We can’t compromise the Zcash protocol.

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Hopefully, the ZIP proposals will get concrete feedback.

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Daira-Emma and I voiced reservations about the concept on the Arborist calls on a couple of different occasions.

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You’re right the funding of ZingoLabs is a separate issue.

I am opposed to using ZCG funds to innovate in the surveillance space, full stop.

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I don’t support funding for the needs of law enforcement, nor do I believe that anything in particular is inevitable with respect to that way of being.

Does QEDIT have anything else that they’d like to see implemented?

Maybe the best way forward is to reallocate the funding to something that’s more mutually satisfactory.

Surely QEDIT has other projects they’re eager to realize!

Why not prioritize something else?

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yes! thanks for asking…

we’re proposing a ZIP to re-introduce the md5 hash instead of sha256. it’s super-efficient, and it would go together with good-old Dual_EC_DRBG for randomness, to make a very fast zkp scheme. we got tipped to this design by running llama3 on groq.com.

in order to still make it for NU6, we thought of running the trusted setup in a telegram group that we pinky-promise we will delete afterwards. the timeline is a bit ambitious, but since @daira is swamped with work already, rest assured the auditing will be performed by the famous 我们不是邪恶的 (Women Bushy Seal-of-DAO) group.

we were waiting with this proposal for a time where the politics would appease for a moment - in US, France, Russia, Middle-east and in Zcash. so anytime soon! :slight_smile:

</s>

meanwhile happy to chat in DM to explain why we’re proposing the ZIPs we do, and how it’s not what you think it is…

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