Below please find the latest @ZcashGrants meeting minutes and Public Dashboard link.
Attendance:
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Aditya
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Brian
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Hudson Jameson
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Jason
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Michael
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Alex Bornstein (ZF resource)
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Daniel Wolande (ZF resource)
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Jack Gavigan (ZF resource)
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Danika Delano acting as notetaker
Key Takeaways:
- All members agreed to leave node-Tor - Javascript implementation of the Tor protocol open and to have Dan follow up with Teor for feedback.
- All members agreed to decline Grant Idea: Tokidoki as Full-time Moderator and Technical Writer proposal. Dan to draft a response.
- All members agreed to decline Bilingual Crypto and ZCash educational content & Podcast. Dan to draft a response.
- All members agreed to leave Zemo - Your Web3 Inbox open. Hudson to address concerns on the forum.
- The members discussed concerns about the Shielded Multi Signature Transactions proposal and discussed potential involvement with FROST with Jack. Next steps are to have a conversation with ECC, ZF, then the applicant.
- The committee discussed an inquiry for a potential proposal. They decided to go back to the potential applicant and ask them to further demonstrate the need.
- The committee and ZF discussed the committee’s intention when creating an agreement with 37 Laines. Jason to send further clarification by Wednesday and Alex to schedule a call with 37 Laines for Friday.
- Alex confirmed that the new grant platform will go live by March 18 and he will add a simple RFP form for ZCG review.
- Aditya to draft a code of conduct for interacting with ZCG
- The committee discussed how to raise awareness and educate the public about Zcash, and the idea to contract a firm. Jason to research marketing firms. Hudson also brought up committee members attending in person events.
- Ambassador Program began on March first; should have updates from ambassadors at the end of the month.
Notes:
node-Tor - Javascript implementation of the Tor protocol
- Jason summarized that all members were indifferent or leaning toward no at the last meeting. Jason asked Dan if he was able to ask Teor for feedback. Dan said that he will follow up with them. All agreed to leave the proposal as an open item.
Grant Idea: Tokidoki as Full-time Moderator and Technical Writer
- Jason explained that the ZCG committee met with Tokidoki and told them that all members agreed that there isn’t a need for another full time moderator or a need for a technical writer; the committee mentioned the global ambassador program but they did not seem interested; it became apparent that they are looking for a full time job; the committee gave them resources and decided to decline the proposal.
- Dan to draft a response.
Bilingual Crypto and ZCash educational content & Podcast
- Jason summarized that it is a team of two Iranian-American women proposing a bilingual website and podcast; it is not well-written and mentions the ADA website several times so he’s not sure it’s a genuine application; either way, it’s not something they are looking for; they could tell them to look for RFIs they will be putting out.
- Aditya commented that ADA is important in the long term. Hudson also agreed that keeping ADA requirements in mind is a good thing.
- Dan to draft a response declining proposal.
- Jason explained that Ziga submitted this grant last year then withdrew it; the ZCG committee believes they are still asking for too much money.
- Hudson shared that he is working on a response to post to the forum about their questions and concerns.
- All members agreed to leave as an open item. Once the concerns are addressed by Ziga, they will make an official decision; they are trending toward no, but it’s not a final decision.
Shielded Multi Signature Transactions
- Jason said the ZCG committee has concerns about the merits, cost, whether the applicant works well with others in the ecosystem and, if the proposal will benefit the entire Zcash ecosystem; ZCG wants to have a conversation with ZF and ECC engineers to get their input; ZCG is working on scheduling a call with Steven and then Hanh in the next week or two.
- Hudson clarified that ZCG sees Hanh’s value to the ecosystem, regardless of the outcome of this grant; there may need to be some back and forth to see how he can benefit the ecosystem.
- Aditya brought up that the applicant, Hanh, has finished past grants earlier than planned milestones with early payout requests; some of his deliverables have included shortcuts & lack of documentation; there seems to be a lot of fluff in the milestones for the shielded multi-sig proposal; pricing-wise ZCG needs to be responsible with their funds when funding developers; if one was to compare to OMR, where original research is being undertaken along with implementation, it costs $90,000 for 1.5yr and Hanh’s FROST implementation is proposed at $250,000; additionally, Hanh has made comments in bad faith against several contributors on the forums; Aditya would like to see Hanh work with ECC, ZF, and wallet teams to deliver much-needed improvements before approving any long-term grant.
- Aditya asked about the status of FROST and if the FROST spec is ready to be implemented; he read a tweet today about improvements to the draft spec. Jack replied that the main focus is to prepare the FROST spec for submission as an internet standard; there are multiple implementations using different curves; the plan for ZF is to implement at a later point when there’s wallet functionality for Zebra; he said he can have Deirdre look at it if the committee would like and asked if they have specific questions.
- Aditya asked if they want the community to help with FROST. Hudson asked Jack if Hanh sends his scope of skills, how can he contribute to FROST? Jack replied that ZF has our roadmap as far as lighwalletd, and we intend to implement, but we would not feel comfortable setting a roadmap or specific expectations for adding FROST to Zebra; for grants it needs to be stand alone and independent; he can ask Deirdre if Hanh can contribute to current work but he would be surprised if there is a need; we can’t adjust our priorities to accommodate a grantee. Hudson clarified that they are not asking for ZF to adjust their roadmap, they are asking if there is a gap that Hanh’s skillset can be used for; similarly, if ZCG gets more advanced researchers that are not embedded in the ZF team. Jack replied that the FROST work is open to - and already involves - multiple people from different orgs; if they want to get involved, he advises them to go to the repo. Hudson said they are on the same page and to let them know if anything pops out to Deirdre.
Pairedodue Questions (Defi proposal received via ZCG website form & forwarded via email by Danika on 03/03)
- Jason noted that this was not officially submitted as a proposal, it was submitted from the form on the ZCG website asking for feedback on a potential proposal.
- Jason summarized that they need $300K in ZEC to allocate liquidity from Zcash chain to DeFi native chain Fantom (FTM).
- Jason brought up that last year’s committee provided liquidity to renZEC and asked if they have the ability to claim that back? Daniel agreed with Jason’s concerns and added that the liquidity could dry up. Hudson explained that they used funding to supply one half of the liquidity pool, and they have renZec so once it’s in there, it’s pretty much spent on it’s intended use. Aditya commented that it made sense to experiment last year. Hudson added that Fantom is not looking great; he knows that guy is accused of rugging and is cashing out a lot of Fantom and abandoning the project; he added that it’s a lot more money than they gave to binance smart chain (only $7K), it was a low risk for potential high reward.
- Jason brought up that they are looking to make a short video explaining how Fantom works (2 min long) and asked if anyone has any contacts to help with the video production. No one had any contacts but Jack noted that 37 Laines and ECC may have.
- Hudson said he is downvoting this inquiry. Jason said he will go back and ask for more information and ask if they can better demonstrate demand for this product.
37 Laines Term Sheet Discussion
- Jason asked for comments and questions on the committee’s comments on the sheet Jack sent regarding 37 Laines. Jack replied that the committee should be clear about what its intent is.
- Jason replied that if 37 Laines walks away from the project, whether it’s mutual or contentious, the intention is not to take it away if the quality is not good; as long as the channel is alive, they are comfortable with it; if they do something in bad faith, we can get it back from them.
- Aditya pointed out that there are examples where a Youtube channel is repurposed to promote other chains and there are lawsuits. Hudson also brought up that we will have backup archival footage so he’s not too concerned about it, they don’t want negotiations to be hostile.
- Jack suggested that the committee draft some language to clarify what they want to happen with regards to the ownership of the channel, content and raw footage if the relationship were to end. Jason said that was a good idea, he can jot down some points, and pointed out that they are not attorneys so it will not be something they will ultimately use in contract. Hudson added that they want the narrative to be correct, the committee can have lang written as discussion points.
- Alex shared that from his extensive conversations with 37 Laines, they understand our intentions: sustainability for the project and community relationships and avoiding future confusion and conflict. We are all taking a lot of time on this now because we want it to be successful far into the future.
- Jack offered that ZF can help facilitate the discussion, and help the committee be clear on expressing what they want out of the relationship; everyone wants to avoid situations where there’s a mismatch in expectations. Also, someone needs to tell the lawyers what the committee’s intentions are; he emphasized that the decision is the committee’s to make.
- Aditya agreed that they should write it down. Jason said that by the end of day Wednesday he will send bullet points to clarify what the committee wants; ideally we can have a call with 37 Laines this week or early next week.
- Jason brought up what Jack had said in an earlier meeting that some risks are inevitable. Jack said, “absolutely.” Aditya pointed out that code that is done open-sourced can be reused but video is not the same.
- Jack clarified the reason to have contracts is to protect everyone and ensure alignment of expectations. There are always risks but if the committee is okay with certain potential outcomes, it’s entirely their decision,
- Jason will draft rough bullet points and will submit them to ZF by end of day Wed. Alex volunteered to set up a call for Friday with 37 Laines.
Calls For Grants / RFPs
- Grants Platform
- Alex announced that ZF is ready to launch the new grant platform but we are going to wait to launch in tandem with the new ZF website because there are so many cross-links.
- Danika brought up that there are several links on the ZCG website that need to be updated. She will send them a list of links they need to update
- Alex added that ZF is super open to feedback and can edit on the fly.
- Jason asked if it will be live by March 18. Alex said, yes, barring some catastrophic event.
- Alex asked if they wanted the RFP application to mirror the RFP questions or to have them just have an option to upload a PDF with their information. Alex said he would mock up a simple application and send it to the committee for input.
Miscellaneous
- ZK Jobs Fair - March 15
- Jason asked if ZF will have a presence. Dan said no, he just brought up the ZK opportunities to see if it made sense to the committee.
- Following a code of conduct for healthy discussions, maybe adopt:http://safetyfirstpdx.org/training/code_of_conduct/Workshophandouts.pdf 3
- Adita voiced that Zcash is a small community and needs to work closer to grow Zcash adoption; this requires improving the communication style to maintain an inclusive environment; they could start with adopting a safe code of conduct for ZCG and the community to interact on grant discussions and follow-ups; this should include what the community can expect from the committee. Jack pointed out that ZF’s code of conduct is intended to mirror ECCs so there is continuity.
- Aditya volunteered to draft a code of conduct for interacting with ZCG.
- Discuss marketing ideas - firm contracted, sponsoring Gitcoin funding rounds to attract developers to build out RFPs.
- Aditya asked what ZCG is doing for marketing; he brought up that Gitcoin had an open funding round and ZCG might be able to leverage to attract developers from the crypto cosystem to fulfill Zcash RFPs set by ZCG. Dan added that there was a Zcash matching round with Gitcoin in the past.
- Hudson said it didn’t get a lot of exposure but he knows Kevin Locke from Gitcoin and can always talk to them to see what is possible like customizing a ZEC focused round.
- Jack explained that the ZF comms plan is almost complete; Winnie will share it at - or possibly before - the next scheduled meeting; the objective is to attract more high quality grant applicants. Aditya replied that he wants to raise awareness of Zcash itself.
- Jason asked if it is possible to find a PR firm to come up with an open-source PR/marketing campaign similar to “Bitcoin is digital gold” like “Zcash is financial freedom”; he asked if there are concerns from a regulatory perspective. Jack replied that it is entirely possible to work with someone to communicate the value of the ethos of Zcash, as long as they don’t say things like “if you buy Zcash, it will go up.” Jason said they can do research on suitable firms. Alex said that he thinks 37 Laines just did that research so they might be a good resource for that.
- Jason asked if the previous committee looked into sponsoring events. Hudson said they might have discussed it as a future thing but they didn’t do anything because they didn’t have a pocket of money before. Alex brought up that on the new grants platform the sponsorship is a much more simple track and a more streamlined process. Hudson suggested that instead of just shelling out money, the committee members should attend things like ZK Summit or other in-person events.
- Alex added that the ROI is hard to determine for sponsorships; ZF struggles at times to determine what the real ROI is and what call to action can we include and what results can we expect to see, but ZF still regularly considers sponsorship opportunities.
- Hudson shared that the ZK hack mini and jobs fair are happening now and the ZK summit is usually in person in Berlin. Jason agreed that the purpose of the discretionary fund is to get the ZCG name out there.
- Ambassador Program
- Aditya brought up that the Ambassador Program began March 1st. Jason added that according to the agreement, they need to submit to Dan what they have done at the end of each month. An action item for Michael is to share a form with the ambassadors to collect their feedback. Jason suggested they see how the ambassadors respond in a month then consider asking for bi-weekly updates. Danika confirmed that the first payment should go out at the end of month and that she should collect ambassador z-addresses. The committee confirmed. Alex noted, as stated in the contract, they need to show they have met the monthly deliverables. Jason said that given everything that’s happening in Russia right now, they should be lenient with RuZcash. All agreed.
