Hi Zeeps,
Today is the final stage of the Tour de France. We already know this year’s winner. No surprise this year, as Pogacar dominated as expected; the second-place finisher is almost four and a half minutes behind.
Winning the maillot jaune, the most prestigious prize in cycling, takes the right mix of DNA, fitness, timing, mental toughness, and consistency. And you must be a climber.
My body isn’t naturally built to compete on climbs. In short, I’m too thick. But it’s my favorite kind of ride. Using the power of your heart, lungs, and legs, you quite literally ascend above the world and into the clouds. Enjoying the climb also takes preparation. You have to learn how to lean into, and strangely, enjoy suffering. You must learn how to control your heart rate and breathing, and to fuse your human system with a machine optimized for one thing.
I didn’t love the climb right away. Even small hills wrecked me. But what began as a kind of hell, transfigured into bliss during a 542.5 mile tour through Colorado’s Rocky Mountains with @AdjyChris and a couple of other friends. I was never the same.
The week was epic. But it left me wanting to climb even higher. And so I then set to conquer Mount Evans (now called Mount Blue Sky) and its summit of over 14,000 feet above sea level. It’s the highest paved road in all of the Americas. One day, without much planning, I loaded up my bike and drove up to the base, and began my 27.5 mile, 6,774 foot climb to the top.
I wasn’t prepared.
At 10,000 feet, I began to feel the lack of oxygen available to my lungs and legs. I also started to feel the sharp drop in temperature as the clouds rolled in, and I lost the shelter of trees as I moved above timberline. Fatigue began to set in about the time I ran out of food and water. I had just reached Summit Lake, still about 9 km from the top. But I thought I was closer. To get a sense of it, these three clips cover the road to the top from Summit Lake: 1, 2, and 3.
This last bit of the ride messed with my head, with never-ending switchbacks with no apparent end in sight. By the time I reached the summit, I was spent, thirsty, and quite dizzy. It took me a bit to recover before I headed down the descent. Descents are usually fun. Not this one. I just wanted to limp home.
I’ve since ridden Mount Evans a couple more times, but alongside friends, and now equipped with the experience and knowledge I needed to ride it well and end with a smile.
Left: In misery at the top of my unprepared solo ride. Right: On top of the world after racing to the top with Chris.
Legendary champion Greg Lemond famously quipped, “It never gets easier, you just go faster.” However, I can attest that it does become easier to climb with the right mindset, conviction, and preparation. Many of us have been grinding at this for years, learning hard lessons, regrouping, and preparing for what is to come.
In the Tour de France, the ultimate winner isn’t alone. They prepare and race with eight-man teams and a supporting crew. The teams include all manner of specialists who collectively work together, whether by leading out or dropping back to the team car to get food and water for the others. Each member has the opportunity to shine by utilizing their specialized strengths. It is a race of optimized layers of machinery: the human, the bike, and the team, in sync and racing up to the summit.
This week, I posted a roadmap for the Zcash protocol along with all the various contributing protocol developers. It may seem simple, but this is a first. Our alignment and collective will to build for purpose, to “build, what matters, faster” in order to climb to the summit, has never been stronger.
And not just the protocol developers. There are many of us, using our specialized strengths and representative roles. We possess the necessary experience and knowledge. We know the grind, what to expect, and have tested ourselves. We are now using the power of our strong hearts, lungs, and legs to ascend above the world and into the clouds. Now, more than ever, is the time to embrace the suffering and accelerate upward and onward, together. The summit is in sight. What an epic climb.
Here’s how we’ve climbed this week:
Zashi
What we did:
- Tor Protection: tested and fixed all discovered issues; Android Alpha build was shared with beta testers. The production release is scheduled for next week, provided all goes well with iOS.
- Swap or Pay with NEAR: Implementing updates and additional requirements.
What’s up next:
- Tor Protection: Fix all discovered issues on iOS, re-test, and qualify for release.
- Swap or Pay with NEAR: Continue implementing updates and additional requirements.
iOS Analytics
- Unique Installs: 8.96k
- Total Downloads: 10.8k
- AppStore Rating: 4.9*
Android Analytics
- Total Install Base: 3.8k
- Total Downloads: 20.7k
- PlayStore Rating: 4.235*
Zcash Core
What we did:
- Librustzcash — made a stack of crate releases that include the following fixes and improvements: made sure that fee information is restored correctly in wallet recovery, fixed an error in transparent balance when min_confirmations is 0, and extended Zallet to support key data from legacy zcashd wallets.
- NU6.1 — Built on the NSM implementation PR to bring it up-to-date and address review comments (librustzcash#1879).
- FROST and NU7 — figured out the details of FROST key generation and how it interacts with the Quantum resilience proposal.
What’s up next:
- Release Zallet alpha.
- Review halo2 PRs for ZSAs.
- Write up the changes to FROST key generation and Quantum resilience.
Other:
We published an all-up 18 month Zcash Protocol Roadmap
ECC published its Q3 2025 Roadmap
I posted a proposed change in process for protocol upgrades
Paul participated in the Virginia Joint Commission on Technology and Science Blockchain Advisory Council meeting and rebuilt the PGPforCrytpo, DC Privacy Summit, and Institute for Economic Freedom websites.
@aquietinvestor posted a proposal for Coinholder-directed grants that we (along with @Alex_ZF) have been discussing for some time. ECC strongly endorses this model and will submit a grant application once the program is activated.
I met with @ebfull for an update on Tachyon (current focus is on recursive proofs with Ragu). ECC’s participation on Tachyon will be limited until 2026 due to our focus on Zallet and network upgrades 6.1 and 7.
We’ve been researching and modeling possible alternative revenue streams, including the addition of basis points in swaps through Zashi.
That’s all for this week.
Climbing,
Onward.