Why I Support ZSAs

General
61

Of course! It was privacy above all else and regulatory compliance backed by influential investors. That was obvious from the very beginning.

We can discuss this endlessly, but everything will turn out exactly as it should.*

  • All processes occur naturally as a result of evolution. Evolution always favors species that are able to adapt to changing conditions. This also applies to economic processes. We constantly observe this pendulum swinging from side to side. Today we don’t need ZSA, but three years ago we did. Yes, I don’t communicate with these people directly, but everything is so transparent that I am completely calm. I wrote this post in support of the pre-voting buzz.
1 Like
62

In the end the support around ZSAs seems to converge on something very simple, akin to startup PMF logic.

The Anti ZSA (and along with anti new developments) camp seems to say ZEC has PMF, and points to the recent price action as evidence. They tend to encourage a slow down, a deceleration of development as they believe it might hinder the current PMF, and that any possible risk for this PMF is existential. Maybe they are right. If ZEC price was zero, most likely no development at all was possible, let alone extensions.

The Pro ZSA camp (who are also usually for many other protocol improvements) seem to say that there is no reason to decelerate, and that we should keep continuously improving. They might think that the recent ZEC price action is more explained by variance than PMF. They say true PMF and a true usecase for the Zcash chain has not cemented itself for the long term. They say Zcash might even be falling behind. Maybe they are right. If another “better” private sovereign asset comes along, what is the plan?

I think the Zcash community needs to think hard which camp they want to belong in, or if its possible to somehow be able to switch between these camps nimbly based on external conditions. From my experience, decentralized governance is not nimble enough.

3 Likes
63

Again. I don’t have a strong opinion on ZSAs. I feel l don’t have a dog on this fight. I certainly think that a stable-ish coin that would help Zcash adoption because volatily conspires against MoE use cases that are needed for growing the anonymity set. And if it’s implemented I will certainly use it. Also zBRL, zARS, zBOL, etc are good use cases for on/off ramps on developing countries. Although good brinding/DEX’ing could also suffice to provide such use cases. But it’s not that my soul will be crushed if ZSAs are not deployed on mainnet either.

That being said, I want to share this thought in an attempt to put some perpective to the scenarios and risks that ZSA detractors posting here. Something I’ve been thinking is that the Big Money capture scenarios that are exposed as arguments against ZSAs are possible today. Starting with mining hash power centralization, followed by token holdings concentration shown by Coinholder voting results that can probably pose risks on the future PoS side of the consensus are more pressing and real problems than the hypothetical ZSA catastrophic visions that ZSA detractors are arguing.

image
image1346×770 67.6 KB

If “the powers that be” would like to destroy or capture Zcash, they wouldn’t need ZSAs to do it. They can do that perfectly fine today. That’s why I don’t think ZSA are the “troyan horse” some folks are trying push as narrative.

“Infinite money attacks” such as Circle or Tether wanting to destroy ZEC, can happen today. People worried about them may as well worry about these first.

3 Likes
Why I'm Against ZSAs
64

I really hope it was that since I really appreciate the effort that went into Zashi, but I keep wondering how much was actually caused by rich people buying a ton of Zcash and the bandwagon effect that followed.

You presented great arguments against ZSAs (the only good arguments I’ve seen to be honest) but I think they only make sense in a scenario where people keep being excited by Zcash. But we spent 9 years to get to this point and I’m not that confident we can keep momentum going without increasing the utility of Zcash or we risk becoming irrelevant.

Random but I find it amusing that you argument is basically “ZSAs might get so huge that it would risk moving the control of Zcash to big orgs” while other people’s argument were “No one wants to use ZSAs” :laughing:

I also know that @secparam was super adamant about the utility of ZSAs, I wonder if he would like to chime in in this topic :popcorn:

4 Likes
65

I’ve been skeptical of ZSAs. My position has been: without trustless bridges, they’re a solution looking for a problem.

But I just connected some dots that changed my thinking.

If we have trustless bridges to transparent chains (JAM EVM service, Ethereum, whatever), then “transparent ZEC” can exist outside Zcash. tZEC lives on chains that are already transparent. Users bridge there when they need transparency. Exchanges, DeFi, compliance, whatever.

This means Zcash L1 could become 100% shielded. No more t-addrs. No more transparent pool. Pure privacy.

Think about what that achieves:

  • Simpler protocol, smaller attack surface
  • Cleaner narrative: “Zcash is private. Period.”
  • Transparency isn’t removed, it’s externalized
  • Exchanges interact with tZEC on chains they already support

We’ve been debating whether to bring assets into Zcash. Maybe the bigger opportunity is pushing our own transparent functionality out.

ZSAs become interesting not because we need stablecoins on Zcash. They become interesting because the bridge infrastructure (JAM, Hyperbridge) that enables ZSAs also enables this externalization.

Has anyone explored this angle? Could trustless bridges be the path to finally deprecating transparent addresses entirely?

4 Likes
[Grant Application] Wrapped Zcash (WZEC)
66

There is an error in your general characterization:

It’s not slow down vs speed up, it’s focus vs distraction.

In startups a common failure mode is:

  1. Achieve product market fit
  2. Get excited and start building lots of adjacent features
  3. Startup burns through product market fit momentum on distractions and fails a few years later.

The correct course of action is generally: when you find PMF you double down on that until you reach the maxima.

I would say the more accurate summary of the anti-ZSA sentiment is: focus and accelerate on the discovered PMF and pause anything unrelated.

There are very clear challenges with the usability, infra resilience, usability, scale, security, etc of the pure ZEC PMF that urgently need to be fixed, we absolutely need to accelerate those areas!

4 Likes
67

Zcash is not a startup.

Tokens have absolutely demonstrated product market fit.

There are no mainstream L1s with privacy tokens.

At the bare minimum let’s stop all the bickering and deploy ZSAs to testnet and see if “Zcash market fit” is found there.

1 Like
68

I would very much like to focus on fixing miner centralization instead of having to defend against new attack vectors such as ZSAs getting added.

69

What do you think of my suggestion above @thowar2 ?

t-addrs are a big pain for the project and this alone could justify ZSAs.

1 Like
70

I think thats a fair counter!

I would just be more happy with it if it was clearly articulated on what other developments / grant ideas we should pursue.

If it wasn’t “Why I am against ZSAs” and it was “Why I would I want us to use resources somewhere else” - would be awesome. Let’s accelerate. Lets build. Let’s improve resiliance, UX, scale, security etc.

3 Likes
71

T addys certainly complicate things. and Zcash becomes completely dark natively.

72

“Rich people buying a ton of Zcash” did not happen by chance.

In fact, showing people how far Zcash has come by demonstrating Zashi has been highly effective when re-igniting interest in Zcash!

The thing you are missing on the momentum is that a new cohort of determined self-sovereign money maximalists got involved and worked very hard on Zcash go to market and messaging for the past 1+ year, self organizing in various self appointed marketing group chats. You can see the evidence of this with things like GenZcash and Mert, on Twitter, among others.

That momentum is not going to stop.

2 Likes
73

There is currently no such thing as a “trustless bridge”, so the risk of that proposal is high. Bridges themselves can be easily cracked down on as exchanges can.

At this point in time I think its strategically advantageous to have t-addr. Eg. the center of liquidity in crypto is Binance and we would not have liquidity there without enforcing t-addr.

In a world where ZEC has strong decentralized liquidity, is too big to fail, and much better tooling for shielded wallets, I think that deprecation could make sense.

2 Likes
74

You’re right that trustless bridges aren’t production-ready today. But “not yet” is different from “impossible.”

NEAR Intents is already in Zashi. Not fully trustless (uses MPC signing with ~20 independent operators), but it works. red·bridge is making real progress with Avalanche: FROST threshold signatures, Teleporter integration, moving to PoS. Maya is live for ZEC swaps (though unstable and t-addr only). JAM/Hyperbridge is earlier stage but actively being explored.

None of these are perfect. They exist on a spectrum from “single custodian” to “fully decentralized.” The question isn’t whether perfect trustless bridges exist today. It’s whether we should be building toward them.

On regulatory risk: fair concern. Bridges can face pressure. But the more decentralized the infrastructure, the fewer single points of failure. NEAR Intents uses an MPC network with 20+ independent operators, not one custodian. red·bridge is building threshold signatures specifically to avoid custodial concentration. The spectrum matters.

On Binance: you’re right that tex addresses were designed for exchange compliance. But should Zcash’s protocol be permanently constrained by Binance’s current preferences? ZIP 320 was an accommodation, not an architecture.

Here’s where I think your argument gets circular. You say: get decentralized liquidity first, get too big to fail, THEN deprecate t-addrs. But decentralized liquidity comes FROM the infrastructure we’re discussing. ZSAs with bridges. DEXs that can handle shielded swaps. Maya, NEAR Intents, red·bridge. These are the early steps toward the world you describe.

Waiting until we’re “too big to fail” before building the infrastructure that enables growth seems backwards. The infrastructure is how we get there.

You’ve framed this as “focus vs distraction.” I’d reframe it. t-addrs ARE the distraction. They’re a hole in the privacy model. They complicate the protocol. They give regulators a handle. A 100% shielded Zcash is the purest expression of the PMF you’re defending.

ZSAs + bridges aren’t a detour from private money. They’re the mechanism for closing the transparent hole entirely.

I’m not saying rush into this. Your concerns about timing and risk are legitimate. But “not yet” should come with a roadmap, not a veto. What would you need to see? How decentralized do bridges need to be? How much liquidity counts as “enough”?

Genuinely asking. Because it sounds like we want the same future but disagree on how to get there.

2 Likes
75

Strong analysis @artkor. ZSAs enable more than stablecoins - we’re using shielded txs for messaging (ZChat). Same infra could do access tokens, reputation markers.

Zcash as privacy infrastructure, not just money :locked_with_key:

1 Like
76

IBC protocol has been in production for a long time. Is there any reason you don’t consider it trustless?

1 Like
77

Fair point. IBC has been running on Cosmos for years. Trustless bridges aren’t hypothetical, they’re proven at scale.

So the question isn’t “can trustless bridges work” but “when does Zcash connect to one.” That’s what makes JAM/Hyperbridge and red·bridge worth watching.

78

I think ultimately we should connect everything. Everything else is details :world_map: ZSA’s will help us get there.

3 Likes
79

(BTW Avalanche also has trustless bridging with ICM. That’s how red·bridge sends messages between its own L1 and the C-Chain.)

Appreciate the mention of red·bridge. Keeps us going!

1 Like