Zcash Community Grants Meeting Minutes 12/23/2024

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

Attendance:

  • Amber
  • Brian
  • GGuy
  • Jason
  • Michael (did not attend but voted async)
  • Alex (ZF resource)
  • Deidra M (notetaker during transition period)

Key Takeaways:

2025 Community Funding Programs Grants - ZCG will table these decisions until the new committee is appointed.

Open Grant Proposals

  • Integrating Zcash Into Western Kenya Ecosystem - Jason gave background on this grant. This proposal seeks $30,000 to expand the Blockchain Bridger Initiative in Western Kenya, focusing on educating local communities about Zcash’s privacy features and promoting its adoption. The project will offer workshops, webinars, and developer resources for individuals and businesses, and integrate Zcash into payment systems and local economies. The goal is to promote financial autonomy and security through blockchain education while building long-term partnerships in the region.
    • The committee gave their thoughts on this proposal.
    • The committee unanimously voted to reject this proposal because it is out of scope and too expensive.
    • Jason brought up one of Chidi’s comments about ZCG not funding Africa-based grant requests. Jason said that although there was some truth to that statement, ZCG did approve Chidi as an ambassador and is open to approving similar grants for Africa-based projects; however, numerous previous grants in that past are often expensive, copy/paste, or out of scope. Amber also recalled Chidi saying that some guidance would be good for African teams looking for grant funding. She said she liked that suggestion, and Jason agreed, saying that maybe Chidi or ZecHub could help. Brian said he would like to fund grants in this region, but thus far, the grants submitted have been of low quality. He also said he favored setting some guidelines and supported the guidance initiative. Jason added that Nigeria, in particular, is an important country for crypto, so ZCG needs to make an effort to focus more on it and the African region in general.
    • After the meeting, Michael voted to reject this grant.
  • WebZjs Browser Library and Browser Wallet Maintenance - Jason summarized this grant. This proposal seeks $168,000 for the ongoing maintenance and support of the WebZjs browser library and browser wallet, including the MetaMask Snap, for a period of 12 months. The project aims to ensure the library remains compatible with Zcash protocol updates, resolve bugs, and provide support for developers using the library. The funding will cover regular code updates, issue tracking, and progress reports, ensuring the tools remain secure, performant, and up-to-date. Each monthly milestone is capped based on the work completed, with payments made according to the progress achieved.
    • ZCG unanimously approved this grant.
    • Jason said ongoing support was not included in the original grant. Jason also noted that this grant addresses some of the concerns raised by ECC with regard to ensuring maintenance of upstream changes.
    • After the meeting, Michael voted to approve this grant.
  • Zcash Extensible Wallet Interchange Format (ZeWiF) - Jason gave background on this grant. This proposal seeks $121,200 to create an extensible wallet interchange format for Zcash, which will facilitate migration from the deprecated Zcashd reference client to other wallets. The project involves surveying existing wallets, designing an interoperability format, developing import/export Rust libraries, and creating a tool to recover content from legacy wallets. The goal is to ensure users can easily move between wallets and securely recover their assets without losing information. Blockchain Commons and Zingo Labs are collaborating on this project, with a timeline aimed at supporting the Zcashd deprecation deadline in April 2025.
    • Jason mentioned that Hanh developed a tool that helps recover funds from ZecWallet Lite. Zancas believes their tool is different in that: (1) it offers a simple way to recover funds by allowing users to provide a wallet or seed and pushing a button; (2) it accepts general input and is not limited to ZecWallet; (3) it produces general output that is compatible with any other tool in the ZeWiF ecosystem. Jason noted that the feature for recovering funds is a little over 10% of the total grant.
    • The majority of the grant is focused on designing the interchange specification, developing Rust libraries for importing and exporting wallet data and providing tools and documentation to help developers implement the format in their wallets and ensure compatibility with various Zcash wallet versions
    • ZCG requested that ECC and ZF review this proposal. Both Daira and Strad signaled strong support for it and noted that it’s a great improvement. ZF noted they have limited experience with wallet operations and recommended ECC review.
    • Amber chose not to abstain and gave her opinion. She said it was a very well-written grant, which gives her confidence that this team knows how to execute the project’s deliverables. She also said she saw a lot of community excitement behind it and voted to approve it. Brian voted to approve this grant and thought standardization would benefit the ecosystem. GGuy agreed and said this grant would likely be of high value.
    • After the meeting, Michael voted to approve this grant.
    • ZCG unanimously approved this grant.
  • Zcash Infra - 1 Year - Jason summarized this grant. This proposal requests $6,000 to continue funding the maintenance of at least four public lightwalletd (LWD) servers for Zcash. The servers currently running six instances provide critical infrastructure for mobile wallets by ensuring availability and reliability. The budget will cover hosting costs for the next 12 months to maintain service continuity.
    • ZCG will conduct a mobile vote once the required timeframe has elapsed.
    • On December 27, ZCG unanimously approved this grant.

Brainstorm Session Follow-Ups

  • GitHub Migration - GitHub grant submissions are up and running! It is active, and there are no issues to report. Milestone functionality via GitHub should be active soon.
  • Milton request - Jason and Milton exchanged replies on the forum “unanimous” decisions in the meeting minutes. Jason would like FPF to standardize the ZCG Minutes moving forward so that the words “unanimously approved” appear distinctly only when all five members approve the minutes. Alex and ZCG agreed on the criteria for future meetings.
  • MetaMask Snap Audit - Chainsafe’s MetaMask Snap project requires an audit. MetaMask has a list of approved external auditors, one of which is Hacken.io. They are asking for $6,000 for the audit, which will come from the discretionary budget. ZCG approved.
  • Ledger - Jason wanted to put on record the conversations with Pacu and ZF. Ledger has received the final payment for their milestones, but there are questions about what wallets will integrate with it and how easily they can integrate it. Pacu is contacting different wallet teams to determine if they will integrate/implement Ledger into their wallets. The next steps for ZCG are to understand the limitations of Ledger and set up a call with Zondax in early January.
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