The Future of Zcash

General
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Here’s my understanding of list of big things for Zcash:

  • ZSA

  • Scalability via recursive proofs

  • Proof of Stake

  • Programmability/Shielded contracts for Zapp ecosystem

  • Pool deprecation policy & enforcement

  • 10x size of ZEC in shielded pools

Let me know if i missed some mind blowing or obvious big ideas for Zcash.

My advice for ZSA & Programmability: Think of how we need to bootstrap the ecosystem:

  • Reach to potential interested parties (ex: leveraging advisory group network for developers, companies) or a callout blog for incentives to build on Zcash to see if there is demand.

  • Plans to build ambitious ZSAs & shielded contracts in-house, if it gets real users using it, then people automatically start thinking about Zcash!

I really like ECC’s product/user focused strategy, it’s right thing, also hire a great product leader to help with it.

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27

I would say that one is way out in the future, if ever, ZSAs and PoS are coming sooner.

And don’t forget Unified Addresses/shielded by default wallets…

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28

I’d like to see Agoric as the shielded smart contract layer for Zcash.

Not sure if they would have to develop something new or could tweak their existing tech to be private/use HALO etc…

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29

I have seen Agoric pop up a few times. Never heard of it before but it looks great. Why would you prefer it to something like a Cosmos integration?

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30

Agoric is built upon the IBC protocol which is what Cosmos uses. I’d like to see a smart contract layer on top the Zcash protocol as opposed to an integration where I would maybe have to peg into Cosmos to get Smart contract capabilities…

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31

The Following is my own opinion and point of view:

Since I’m no protocol specialist and we seem to have many, I’d rather stick to “requirements” or “use cases”, “ideas” or even “wishes”, there are brighter minds than mine that will probably figure the best way to achieve what I mean in a technical way.

I believe that privacy is a human right and being Zcash a project that can bring that human right to every corner of this earth, then everybody should be able to get involved at any capacity.

I appreciate miners, their investment and the role they currently play in our ecosystem.

But I also think that Zcash needs to be sustainable and financially inclusive.

The Zcash network should be secured and maintained by its people, there should be room for everybody to chime in, from big actors with huge data centers, to some average minimum wage worker chipping in with a fraction of a ZEC to help the project and get something in return no matter how small it seems.

I always compare the value of things against minimum wages. And think about the power of purchase of those wages.

CryptoTwitter likes to go by that “to the moon laser eyes” thing that nobody in the outside world really understands and probably would think it’s pretty childish (to put it politely). I’m supposedly in “this crypto world” and I didn’t understand it either until someone explained it to me.

what many Laser-eyes-to-the-moon folks seem to ignore that for most people on this Earth 1 BTC, 1 ETH seem pretty much around that space orbit already. 1 ZEC is currently worth around 1 minimum monthly wage where I’m from. 1 ETH seems like a lifetime of savings for any worker at that income level and 1 BTC is probably like hitting a jackpot.

I wish that Zcash could go to a consensus protocol that allows anybody to be a part of it, from a “granma gave me some cash for my ‘n-teenth’ birthday” or “I did some extra hours at work this month” level onwards

Then Zcash’s p2p consensus will have also the potential to be a real flesh and bones human being consensus that will be equally strong, computationally and politically speaking.

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32

From a non programmer point of view: what about trying to fill the gaps required for being integrated in a popular app? I’m thinking of Signal announcing mobilecoin, and when asking them why not zcash or other existing projects, it was mostly because of the overall speed.

It looks like a real world issue that could maybe attract companies like signal once solved.

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33

Is sustainability mutually exclusive to Zcash’s carbon footprint?

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I was trying to bring this up at Zcon0 with the Facebook representative, but people laughed and changed the topic, they failed at integrating Libra into the marketplace, and currently have the largest social network on earth. Mark Z is king of kings, no man has ever had that many people in his commons.

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35

If running it depends on a network that consists on dedicated hardware that is expensive to acquire and to operate, it’s probably not sustainable :sweat_smile:

I’m oversimplifying on purpose. That’s how non-crypto people think/are told what mining is.

I believe that is fundamental for Zcash mission that it can be operated at a lower cost than average, so the technological barrier to enter the ecosystem is as low as it can be.

I’m not enforcing concepts, protocols or technologies, also on purpose, to think about what we would like the Zcash of the future to be and not so much (yet) on how we achieve that.

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36

The ZCAP poll has been sent out, with two questions relating to Zcash’s post-NU5 priorities:

  1. What do you believe should be the first (short-term) priority for Zcash following the activation of NU5?
  2. What do you believe should be the second (longer-term) priority for Zcash following the activation of NU5?

The options available are:

  • Improve Zcash’s scalability
  • Move away from Proof of Work
  • Add Programmability to Zcash
  • Add Support for User-Defined Assets to Zcash

The poll will close at 09:00 UTC on 1st September.

I want to acknowledge the suggestions from @teor (reduce protocol complexity), @dontbeevil (10x size of ZEC in shielded pools), and @den (trying to fill the gaps required for being integrated in a popular app).

@teor and I discussed the topic of protocol complexity and agreed that this is something that we should be doing anyway (i.e. no matter what our priorities are in terms of new features and functionality), as a matter of sustainability, best engineering practise, and minimizing Zcash’s attack surface.

@dontbeevil - I agree wholeheartedly that we should be seeking to increase the amount of ZEC stored in shielded pools but I feel like this is an outcome that will result from improving the Zcash protocol and educating users. As such, I didn’t feel it was appropriate to include it as an option in this poll.

@den - Similarly, while I agree that we should be making it easier to integrate Zcash with other apps (and hopefully Zebra’s modular architecture is a step in the right direction for this), I don’t feel that we have enough clarity on what changes to the core protocol would support this objective.

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37

I don’t believe this option, or this set of options in total, is consistent with ECC’s recommendation, or the expressed desires of many in the community.

I think it would be better to at least say something like “Explore other consensus mechanisms other than pure Proof of Work” to allow for alternatives such as hybrid PoW/PoS or other things. For example, a PoW miner might oppose a “move away from PoW” but support a hybrid option.

ECC’s position isn’t really a move “away” from something. Our recommendation is to move toward Proof of Stake for a variety of positive reasons. There are many others in the community that have also voiced that opinion. @Dodger previously mentioned in an Arborist call that the Zfnd might prefer something else, but having language specific to PoS in the survey gives the community means to express its opinion.

Zfnd, I humbly request you change the survey to more accurately reflect the community’s expressed interests.

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38

You make a good point hybrid PoW solutions but, unfortunately, Helios doesn’t permit changes to the questions after a poll is opened.

I’d point out that this is an advisory poll. It’s not binding on anyone, and if strong evidence emerges that options that aren’t included in this poll have widespread support (e.g. if many forum users respond to this thread expressing dismay that they are unable to vote for an option that encompasses hybrid PoW), we can always run another poll with more granular options.

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39

Are you able to void it and send another? “Proof of Stake” is not mentioned anywhere in the poll in spite of widespread discussion support here and across other mediums. For example, here is a list of supporters I pulled quickly from Twitter:

https://twitter.com/Steven_McKie/status/1428837458121138177?s=20

https://twitter.com/_tm3k/status/1427450557095026694?s=20

https://twitter.com/XMMCCCXLV/status/1427788381350551555?s=20

https://twitter.com/QsFTC6re/status/1427787321513021440?s=20

https://twitter.com/RossBlankenship/status/1428141489314484228?s=20

https://twitter.com/XMMCCCXLV/status/1422566825192149000?s=20

https://twitter.com/HomelessBanker/status/1422560508582977546?s=20

This is in additional to our posts about the benefits and a possible hybrid approach toward realization.

See: Should Zcash switch from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake? - Electric Coin Company

And: What would a Zcash Proof-of-Stake transition look like? - Electric Coin Company

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40

I think it’s adequately covered by the “Move away from Proof of Work” option.

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41

Just to give a quick temperature check here: I realized the move away from proof of work phrase implies moving towards hybrid models or proof of stake. Just one person here though!

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42

The first time I read it I took “Move away from Proof of Work” to mean just that: should Zcash move away from being only a Proof of Work chain?

I don’t see it as an exclusive statement, any approach (PoS, PoW+PoS, etc…) would technically be moving away from being a PoW only chain.

The results of the poll, if greater than 50% “yes” would indicate that further research into PoS/Hybrid/Whatever solutions is warranted.

EDIT: also see my reply below.

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43

I believe that words are important and that it’s not splitting hairs. If I understand correctly, the reason it was worded that way is because Dodger would like to explore other consensus mechanisms (@Dodger - please correct me if I’m wrong), which is fine but not a good reason for wording it the way he did for a poll, and it’s really a trivial change to get it closer to what the community expressed it is interested in - which is PoS or a hybrid.

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44

I’m in favor of a move toward proof of stake.

I’m not necessarily in favor of generic move away from proof of work, toward an unspecified consensus mechanism. For example I don’t think I would be in favor of a ‘proof of space and time’ mechanism used by the chia network.

@Dodger, I’m a ZCAP voter, and not sure how I should vote on this to best express my opinion. Would voting that I don’t want a generic move ‘away from PoW’ be interpreted by the Foundation as a vote against moving to PoS?

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45

I see @aristarchus and @joshs point, the question should be more indicative of a direction to go in vs just a simple “yea or nay” to Proof of Work.

A miner could favor a hybrid PoW+PoS model but the current format of the question would force the miner to pick “no” because the third option isn’t on the table.

I would personally be in favor of rewording the poll to somehow include all three options.

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