Zcash Community Grants Meeting Minutes 10/14/2024

[ZcashFoundation]

Below please find the latest ZCG meeting minutes and Public Dashboard link.

Zcash Community Grants Dashboard

Attendance:

• Amber
• Brian
• Jason
• Michael
• Alex (ZF resource)
• Deidra M (notetaker)

Key Takeaways:

• Open Grant Proposals
  • Zcash Global <> Zcash Brazil - This grant was approved.
  • Zcash Global en Espanol - This grant was too early to vote on.
• Brainstorm Session Follow-Ups
  • ZecHub - ZCG met with ZecHub on the future of community-focused funding.
  • GitHub Migration - ZCG continues its efforts to transition to a GitHub-based grants application system.
  • Chainsafe - Kris Nuttycomb contacted ZCG to discuss prioritizing code maintainability in future grant funding.

Open Grant Proposals

• Zcash Global <> Zcash Brazil - Jason gave background on this grant. This is Zcash Brazil’s proposal for 4Q 2024. They are asking for $12,780 in funding to continue promoting Zcash’s presence in Brazil. Key points include a 24% reduction in the overall budget, with specific cuts from team members, and a focus on leveraging the current political instability in Brazil to promote cryptocurrency and privacy. The proposal emphasizes the importance of Zcash and privacy in Brazil, detailing initiatives aimed at community engagement, education, and operational support to enhance Zcash’s visibility and adoption.
  • The committee cast their votes. Michael dissented, explaining that community management and raising awareness are not his current priorities. He also noted that initiatives like these are challenging to evaluate regarding measurable outcomes and success. Although Brian shared Michael’s concerns about the difficulty in assessing the impact of such grants, he voted to approve the proposal. Brian expressed interest in shifting to a new model where ZecHub would manage community-focused funding through bounties rather than having ZCG fund individual teams directly. Since ZecHub isn’t ready to take on that role yet, he felt it was appropriate for ZCG to fund this in the interim and voted to approve. Amber agreed with Brian on the need to explore alternative methods for funding community-driven projects in the future but also voted to approve the grant while options are being explored. Jason and GGuy (via Signal message) also voted to approve the grant.
  • Jason asked Michael what a successful return on investment would look like for these types of grants for him. Michael said that although it is difficult to measure, some tangible benefits like James Katz’s work, ZecHub-wiki, and governance experiments are valuable, but metrics like forum signups, X activity, and increased grant applications are important considerations to determine success as well.
  • Jason said he supported funding community-focused grants. He expressed his hopes that ZCG continues to prioritize these types of initiatives, regardless of whether ZecHub helps manage them in the future. He highlighted successful programs like the Global Ambassador Program (GAP) and ZecHub as major accomplishments and hoped that GAP would eventually resume. While he acknowledged that technical development initiatives should remain the top priority for ZCG, Jason also emphasized the importance of allocating a percentage of the treasury to community-focused grants.
  • With a 4-to-1 vote, this grant is approved.
    • Reporting frequency will be monthly and categorized as community for the records, the same as the previously approved grants from this team.
• Zcash Global en Espanol - Jason gave background on this grant. The proposal seeks $9,000 to enhance Zcash’s outreach in Spanish-speaking Latin America from October to December 2024. The project will focus on increasing Zcash’s visibility through educational content, digital presence, and community engagement via social media, YouTube, newsletters, and online events. The team, including members from the Zcash Español community, aims to address financial privacy issues and promote Zcash as a solution across the region. This effort includes producing content on social media, managing a podcast, and launching an online radio station.
  • During last month’s meeting, ZCG voted 4-to-1 to reject this proposal, with some committee members assuming that ZecHub would be taking over these programs. However, this assumption was incorrect, as ZecHub was not ready to manage them at this time. As a result, Jason asked if the committee would reconsider their votes, and some members said yes.
  • Jason reached out to Yoditar and Roosevelt to let them know about ZCG’s reconsideration. Also, he asked the Zcash Global en Espanol team to incorporate ZecHub feedback in a resubmitted grant proposal. It was submitted on 10/13/2024 and included ZecHub feedback like ZecHub Dework.
  • ZecHub Dework will publish weekly tasks in Spanish on its platform to encourage the Hispanic community to create quality Zcash content in exchange for rewards in ZEC, promote the use of shielded wallets, and maintain community engagement. Additionally, the initiative aims to incentivize ZEC adoption among physical and digital businesses in Latin America by organizing events that teach entrepreneurs how to use ZEC for payments, create closer relationships within the community, and enhance trust and acceptance.
  • Alex asked for clarification on how the ZecHub/Zcash Global en Espanol bounty program would be structured. Jason will reach out to Squirrel or Yoditar to confirm the flow of funds for the weekly paid tasks in ZecHub Dework.
  • It was too early for ZCG to vote on it, and further community feedback is needed, so this grant will remain open.

Brainstorm Session Follow-Ups

• ZecHub - ZCG met with ZecHub on the future of community-focused funding. ZecHub said they could not handle funds management at this time because there is no proper governance structure or approval process and there are possible conflicts of interest with members of the DAO. ZecHub said they will begin to think about their 2025 grant proposal and their goal of having a more significant role in the community.
• GitHub Migration - In his absence, GGuy wrote via Signal: “ZCG continues its efforts to transition to a GitHub-based grants application system. ZCG and FPF are in the process of finalizing the new application form and admin processes and hope to launch an early version next month. ZCG hopes this new system is more streamlined, more transparent, and easier for applicants.”
• Chainsafe - Kris Nuttycomb reached out to ask ZCG to prioritize the maintainability of code in future grant funding, particularly regarding upstreaming changes to standard Zcash libraries. The ChainSafe team had to fork the librustzcash crates for their current project, but maintenance of that fork wasn’t included in their grant, which can potentially burden the ECC team with ongoing maintenance tasks. Their concern is that while the development work Chainsafe is doing is positive, it risks becoming outdated if reliant on a fork that lacks regular updates, especially as new features like ZSA support are introduced.
  • Pacu is setting up a call with Chainsafe so ZCG, the Chainsafe team, and Pacu can all discuss a potential plan.
  • Solution moving forward: Alex to modify existing dependency question in Submittable: “Collaboration and Upstream Dependencies: Describe any dependencies or collaborations with other individuals, teams, or organizations that are required to successfully integrate, maintain, or upstream your changes.”

[Michae2xl]

@ZcashFoundation

Michael asked what a successful return on investment would look like for these types of grants for him. Michael said that although it is difficult to measure, some tangible benefits like James Katz’s work, ZecHub-wiki, and governance experiments are valuable, but metrics like forum signups, X activity, and increased grant applications are important considerations to determine success as well.

If we were to list all the proposals that have not yielded a return on investment for Zcash holders over the last four years, we might spend a month exchanging messages about them.

We need to approach this with goodwill and focus on our monthly growth reports. The server started with zero users, and X also began with zero users. Zcash initially lacked a Discord/Zcash. Aside from Zooko, I didn’t see many people actively supporting Zcash online, most were attackers. Zooko blocked many of them, but today it changed, with our community and the other countries.

Previously, there was little interest in understanding who the entities behind Zcash were. Now, the community is demanding transparency and has demonstrated that it can achieve this with minimal funding. Ultimately, having the best technology is meaningless without users and a supportive community.

• James is here because, guess what, we’ve grown the community!
  While a rising developer earning $600 per month might be viewed negatively compared to other Zcash developers, that’s alright.

I take pride in saying that Zcash Brazil and the Spanish community have positively impacted the Zcash community as a whole. Also, I was involved in creating the Zechub DAO alongside Ian and others.

[gordonesTV]

@ZcashFoundation

Jason asked Michael what a successful return on investment would look like for these types of grants for him

The “return on investment” of funds in the communities can be measured as follows:

-New wallet downloads.
-New active Zcash users (not just hold).
-New businesses or ventures adopting Zcash.
-Testimonials of people achieving or doing things with and thanks to Zcash, ZEC or the privacy of their wallets.

In the Brazilian and Spanish communities we have many testimonials of this.

No, we won’t see money returning to the ZCG or EEC coffers, but little by little we will see more and more people joining the use of Zcash, which after all is the adoption that EVERYONE within Zcash is looking for, right?

@ZcashFoundation

Brian expressed interest in shifting to a new model where ZecHub would manage community-focused funding through bounties rather than having ZCG fund individual teams directly.

The ZecHub was not initially created to support community initiatives, but rather EDUCATIONAL ones.

If you want to change the nature of the ZecHub, and by majority vote you reach that consensus, fine. But at least it makes me wonder: Is the ZCG divorced or detached from community initiatives? If so, then that restructuring should also be announced, so that all members of the various local Zcash communities know where they stand and where to direct their requests…of course, taking into account that you really want to continue to support the communities. I hope this will be the case.

@ZcashFoundation

• • and further community feedback is needed, so this grant will remain open.

Do we need more support, mention and recognition of what Spanish-language community members do to make the decision to support the grant? Ok! Then we will request that those who know what is being done in this community since 2022 leave us a new comment here, to revalidate it.

In advance we appreciate the comments here from @joshs @zancas @Danika @decentralistdan @squirrel @dismad @vito @Iogy @elisehamdon @ryan.taylor , etc, who can attest to what is being done.

[decentralistdan]

Zcash Global en Español Q4

I support this grant. I have had the opportunity to collaborate with these team members over the years on various initiatives and would like to see them continue to contribute their valuable time & skills to the Zcash community going forward. Also fun fact: the general regions represented in this grant are consistently 4 of the top 20 regions in the Global Adoption Index. [image] This is also worth a read for some context on the potential impact this grant could have. [image]

[dismad]

@gordonesTV

Then we will request that those who know what is being done in this community since 2022 leave us a new comment here, to revalidate it.

I fully support this grant and all the work that happens behind the scenes. I hope more in the community appreciate the work being done.

[doloresampaio]

Como membro ativa da comunidade Zcash, quero reforçar meu apoio às comunidades Brasileira e Espanhola, que desempenham um papel crucial no crescimento e na adoção das tecnologias de privacidade e descentralização. É inspirador ver o engajamento e a dedicação de todos para fortalecer o ecossistema Zcash em nossos países, promovendo a inclusão financeira e o respeito à privacidade. Juntos, estamos construindo um futuro mais seguro e justo. Vamos continuar avançando, compartilhando conhecimento e promovendo a adoção de soluções que fazem a diferença!

[squirrel]

Some thoughts,

Around 4 years ago i watched a video from one of the people i was subscribed to on youtube - @BrunchTime. He spoke so passionately about Zcash I simply had to read into it more. Today that video has 73 views but the butterfly effect of just one of those views arguably led to ZecHub as it exists today & hundreds of new Zcash users.

The Zcash Espanol team speaks passionately about Zcash on a daily basis.

Some weeks ago a user came into the Zcash Discord for help with Ywallet. Eventually @hanh stepped in solved the issue. Turns out that person has 7k followers on Twitter (more than Zechub, ZcashESP and Zcash Brazil combined). They regularly post in support of Zcash.

The Zcash Global Discord exists because of Community Management.

The primary objective of everyone here is to get Zcash into the hands of as many people around the world as possible.

• How do we onboard merchants around the world?
• How do we increase online presence of Zcash so it doesn’t appear to be a spooky ghost town?
• How to we educate people on the reasons they should own ZEC?

We only see 10% of what happens across Zcash as a whole. The committee can always participate or check-in with projects in addition to reviewing milestones are met.

While the success of Community Projects is hard to fully quantify, GAP seems like a good bet.

Successful projects with Global Ambassador Programs: Avalanche Brave Nym

An A-10 Warthog performing Cloud Seeding

[slinkties]

Team Zcash Brazil is doing a great job of raising awareness and boosting the Zcash project.

I believe that funding is needed to continue this great work that the team is doing.

[Tchosco]

gostaria de parabenizar a equipe da Zcash, especialmente Brasil e LatAm, por divulgar os valores da privacidade num mundo cada vez mais vigiado e corrupto. parabéns galera!

[E-zec]

In my humble opinion, for the time I have been in crypto, the community is as fundamental to a project as the development core, both in synergy and in continuous growth that strengthen and validate the usability of the technology and the purpose, we are here to grow and improve more and more.

[AAmandita]

Como grande admiradora e membro da comunidade Zcash Brasil, expresso meu apoio à comunidade, em especial Brasil e Espanha por todo o trabalho desempenhado em defesa e crescimento de tecnologias descentralizadas e que enxergam a importância da privacidade. Como alguém que vê nas ferramentas educacionais o principal meio de inclusão financeira para todos, reconheço o tamanho da diferença que a Zcash faz através dessas comunidades.

[joshs]

This is such important work! The community is the bedrock of this, or any, project. I’m thankful you are part of it.

[zancas]

When’s the next ZCG election?

Who’s running from Venezuela? Nicaragua? Argentina? Honduras? Guatemala? Mexico? Turkey? Palestine? Yemen?

[FPF]

ZCG elections will take place before the end of the year.

[Minevg]

The team started in 2022. I dedicated myself to studying the protocol so I could create content aimed at social media and give Discord a more user-friendly look. In the same year, Discord, which was previously Zcash Brasil, was renamed Latam and then Global, bringing together the entire Zcash ecosystem. It was also during this period that Ian Sagstetter arrived with the ZecHub project, which became a DAO, of which I am one of the founding members. I created the logo and designed the NFT that all DAO members own.

Although many people don’t like Discord, it is undeniable that it is an essential tool for communities today, being widely used around the world.

In 2022, we participated in events such as NFTRio, BlockchainRio and BitinRio. We develop and produce giveaways, such as shirts, stickers, buttons, notebooks, pens, caps and mugs, all with financial support from Michael, who believes in Zcash, just like we do. At these events, we started talking about Zcash and realized that some people already knew about the project, but had a mistaken view or doubts. We distributed giveaways, talked to many people and expanded our community, adding new members. It was at that moment that I realized how important and impactful our in-person work is.

At events, we are easily recognized as ‘the guys in black’ with the shield on their chest and sunglasses. Everyone knows that the Zcash team has arrived. We are always very well received, invited to speak and participate in the events.

How relevant is our work? I don’t think it is less important than that of the developers. They are different jobs, but they need to go hand in hand. I believe a lot in my work and that of the entire team. Without users and without a community, development would be meaningless.

Our work is documented on the forum, available for everyone to see and comment on. For those who don’t know us yet, here’s the link: https://linktr.ee/zcashbrasil.”

[gordonesTV]

@Minevg

Without users and without a community, development would be meaningless.

That is! Thanks for this resume!