Zcash Media - The committee voted to approve Milestone 1 of this grant proposal and will meet with the Zcash Media team to discuss their distribution plan.
Chainsafe Draft Proposal - The committee discussed the Chainsafe team’s grant proposal and plans to have a follow-up meeting to discuss the cost of the grant.
Plug and Play Node - Ahas raised questions regarding his plug-and-play node.
ZSAs and Legal Risk - ZCG unanimously agreed to proceed with funding the whitepaper proposal from Steptoe.
Open Grant Proposals
ZURE: Phase 2 - Jason summarized this grant proposal. The Zcash User Research & Engagement (ZURE) Phase 2, led by Peacemonger, seeks a $35,000 grant to deepen the understanding of Zcash adoption barriers and motivators among early adopters. This project builds on the findings of Phase 1, aiming to enhance Zcash’s usability and community involvement through methodical data collection and analysis and to disseminate these insights via public reports and discussions. ZURE will focus on engaging the Zcash community through interviews and online events, further fostering collaboration and supporting user-driven initiatives to promote Zcash usage.
Tatyana put on a ZURE Zeboot last weekend, an invite-only event for the community she formed from participants in round one, which Jason and Dan attended.
The committee went around to give their thoughts on this proposal. Amber voiced her concern about the focus on early adopters because she understood that this grant was to expand adoption to people who aren’t early adopters. She said learning the characteristics of that group wouldn’t help with expansion. Jason referenced Tatyana’s findings during Phase 1, which she presented at ZURE Zeboot. He stated that her research showed that early adopters, for example, in Latin America, who use Zcash for commerce, feel that Zcash could be improved and, therefore, can help make Zcash more user-friendly, thus helping to attract more people. Dan said from what he understood at the event last week, there was a strong emphasis on understanding and capitalizing on the feedback from early adopters of Zcash, and the goal of this proposal is to improve user experience and attract new users to the Zcash community.
Overall, there was support for funding Phase 2, with some members expressing positive feelings. At the same time, others felt unsure about the project’s focus (too catered to current users versus pathways for broader adoption). However, there was a consensus on the project’s value in gathering feedback and guiding future development. Michael agreed with Brian and Amber on the scope of this project. He added that although Phase 1 was informative, this was a Latin American-focused research project that already uses Zcash and does not seem like there is an outreach effort to bring in new users. For those reasons, Michael said he doesn’t fully value the direction of the research and does not see a significant impact from the first phase. Michael also stated that although engaging with the Latin American community is important and acknowledged that there are unique challenges and opportunities, he questioned whether this engagement can be considered organic, especially with Free2Z’s efforts. Jason disagreed with this last point and said that many people who use Zcash in Latin America are not grant recipients; therefore, we should consider this an organic engagement. GGuy noted that data is essential, so he sees value in this project for that reason.
Because the forum mentioned how much ECC values this research, some ZCG members suggested that ECC could consider hiring Tatyana directly or working with her collaboratively. The committee recognized Tatyana’s expertise and the potential benefits of directly involving her in development initiatives.
ZCG discussed potential next steps, including potentially reaching out to Tatyana to discuss funding options and possible changes to the scope of her research. Dan mentioned that she is presenting at ZconV next week. ZCG will wait to move forward until they hear her presentation at that event.
Brainstorm Session Follow-Ups
During this meeting, ZCG wanted to revisit the treasury management strategy to ensure transparency with the community and clarity regarding their plans.
The committee wants to remind the community that the Dashboard exists openly and that ZCG is aware of the current holdings.
There was discussion of potentially pausing or freezing the grants program due to market conditions, but this will be discussed further as needed.
Zcash Media - The committee discussed this grant at their latest brainstorm session. Jason asked if all members agreed to approve paying out Milestone 1. ZCG unanimously agreed and discussed the appropriate next steps.
ZCG will set up a call with Zcash Media to discuss the distribution and release of the completed videos.
Jason and Dan are on ECC’s task force for decentralizing digital, and they have offered to work with Zcash Media on the distribution plan. A call is scheduled for this week.
Given the current treasury, significant delays, and evaluation of the grant’s performance, the committee discussed possibly canceling this grant or moving ahead to fund Milestone 2.
GGuy and Amber felt optimistic about moving forward with the grant. Brian said he felt neutral to positive about moving forward with the grant after discussing the distribution plan with Zcash Media because the concerns raised by the community were valid, particularly regarding delays and the lack of collaboration within the ecosystem. Jason said he has concerns about the delays and lack of collaboration and engagement with the community. He suggested “pausing” Zcash Media’s next milestone to gauge the impact of the first set of videos. Michael said that he was leaning negatively toward continuing Zcash Media and that only seeing an extremely positive impact from the release of videos would change his mind. He also agreed with Brian and Jason about the delays and the aspects of collaboration.
There was a consensus on the need to prioritize resources effectively, considering the current state of the treasury, ecosystem, and organizational goals. ZCG discussed what a “pause” might do to the momentum of Zcash Media’s team and also how a cancellation might be perceived by other grantees within the ecosystem. It was agreed that the idea of putting this project on “pause” to evaluate the impact of the first set of videos will be discussed explicitly with Zcash Media.
The committee will discuss this grant further on Friday during their brainstorm.
Chainsafe Draft Proposal - Jason gave background on this drafted proposal. ChainSafe Systems proposes the “webZjs - Zcash Browser Wallet Library” project, seeking to expand the ZCash ecosystem by creating a browser-compatible library. This library will enable the development of web wallets and browser plugins, facilitating easier and broader access to Zcash’s features. With a funding request of $253,000, ChainSafe aims to develop a library that includes key generation, wallet sync, transaction building, and proof generation alongside a demo wallet to showcase practical implementation. The project aims to provide developers with the tools to create user-friendly ZCash web wallets.
ZCG discussed their sentiments on this proposal at the $253,000 price. Four members voted to reject the proposal at this price, while GGuy dissented, voting to fund.
ZCG met with the Chainsafe team and tried to set expectations, especially regarding the budget. Although the proposal itself is useful, it is priced too high. Therefore, the committee decided to meet with Chainsafe again with a more appropriate funding level, $100,000 to $150,000, to gauge the project’s new scope at that price.
ZCG will revisit this proposal at the next meeting after receiving clarifications from that team.
Plug and Play Node - Ahas asked about alternative libraries or SDKs he could use to create the wallet. Jack suggested that ZCG connect Ahas to Pacu, the Zcash Community Wallet Developer.
Dan will also create a Signal chat with Ahas, Luca, and Jason.
ZSAs and Legal Risk - As previously stated, Steptoe provided two proposals:
A “workflow”: a private internal advice proposal specifically for ZF/ZCG
A “white paper”: an outline of the legal regime for ZSAs for the Zcash community as a whole
Jason asked the committee which Steptoe proposal they should move forward with, if at all. ZCG unanimously agreed to proceed with funding the white paper proposal. The committee will finance the white paper from the discretionary budget. ZCG and Steptoe negotiated a mutually agreeable fee arrangement.
Jason will contact Alan from Steptoe to relay the decision and put him in touch with Alex from ZF to review and execute the engagement letter.
Hi @ryan.taylor. I want to acknowledge your concern and highlight that we have discussed and are considering the possibility of pausing / cancelling the second milestone of the grant pending feedback from the community on the first round of videos and other factors. However, a final decision has not yet been made.
We have a call set up with Zcash Media later this week to discuss their distribution plan and how to move this project forward.
I understand your frustration, but I can’t post the videos publicly. That would violate our agreement with Zcash Media. I can, however, confirm that the entire committee and @decentralistdan have received and viewed 6 long-form videos and 18 shorts (i.e. their Milestone #1 deliverable).
So there is an agreement with Zcash media that you can’t release the videos? They got paid with funds directly from the dev fund (community) and now the community can’t see them? What am I missing?
I too would like some clarity here. I have no doubts the content will be stellar, and the work completed took hard work, but for other grantees or potential grantees and ZEC holders, accountability matters. It seems hard for the community to hold ZCG accountable with the manner in which this grant has played out. Perhaps I’m missing information, and I’m asking for a little more clarity.
You, Zcash Community Grants, @aquietinvestor@GGuy@ambimorph@BrunchTime@wobbzz, are going to give 37 Laines @37L a total of 600,000 US dollars from the Zcash Development Fund before the Zcash community sees so much as a screenshot of deliverables that are 8 months late.
Is that what’s happening right now?
all members agreed to approve paying out Milestone 1. ZCG unanimously agreed and discussed the appropriate next steps.
I would like to see from all five of you, if you agree with this decision, please.
I want to respond and speak a bit about the challenges of being on a decision-making body like ZCG.
Many of you will remember I railed against Zcash Media’s second grant for a lot of reasons. To me the logic was simple - If AAA quality media with a big, headline grabbing reveal (Snowden) didn’t meaningfully move the needle for ZEC, I don’t expect future videos without a big reveal to make a meaningful impact. Somedisagreed at the time.
But there’s an awkward diplomatic balance here that I’m sensitive to. ZCG is a team, and the team was positive on the grant. I don’t consider it a productive use of my position or my time to repeatedly complain about some grant we approved. After the decision is made, I’m not trying to drag down a project that my team committed funding to.
I do appreciate you calling this out. Spending $600k for Youtube videos absolutely seems farcical at a ZECUSD price of ~$23. Milestone 1’s final deliverable was completion of 6 full-length videos and 18 shorts. These videos do exist. I’ve watched them. It’s hard to make the case 37L haven’t fulfilled, or at least aren’t on pace to fulfill this milestone.
The late delivery is a disappointment, but it’s pretty much par for the course for grants. An approved grant is an option on doing the work. If a grantee has better things to do than their grant, it’s naïve to expect them to do anything else.
“Frustration” does not begin to describe my feelings about this situation, especially reading this during this week when Zk Audiovisual Club is producing all of this live, free ZconV content.
There are a variety of ways in which we’ve seen grants underperform. I really wish there were a better way to quantify an estimate for the amount of time a deliverable should take. But we encounter grants of so many different types and ZCG committee members are not experts in all of the areas of expertise that comprise a deliverable. So there’s an element of trust that we place in the grantee that the estimate that they provide is achievable.
The ZF follows up on a routine basis with grantees to ensure that the deliverables will be met. Inevitably, when someone is going to bust the timeline on their deliverable, it can go one of a few ways:
Non-communicative - They don’t respond to ZF or our repeated attempts to communicate and we don’t know why they are late. (Shielded Dialogues)
Communicative - They maintain communication with ZF & the committee and realize that their initial plans aren’t materializing as intended and they:
a) Decide to cancel their pursuit. (halo2 Community manager)
b) Pause their efforts with abiguity on the resolution. (halo2 docs improvement)
c) Announce that they are still eager to achieve the work and work with us on an acceptable path forward. (Zcash Media)
We are more likely to work with a grant applicant that finds themselves in 2c to achieve an outcome that the committee thinks is desirable and beneficial for the community. If ZM were non-communicative or ambiguous about their ability to achieve the agreed deliverables in their grant, I don’t think we would be having this discussion.
Community feedback on the Zcash Media project reflected here on the forum is the tip of the iceberg. I highly encourage ZCG to take the time to poll the rest of the community before making any more decisions on this grant.
Sounds like @David_Heisenberg is a real smooth talker and @37L went in with a well-laid plan.
600k USD before having to show anything to the community, who is supposed to be an integral part of the community grants process. Where’s the accountability here?
I value and appreciate the clarifications made here by ZCG members, because I understand that it must not be easy to deal with the widespread upset around the Zcash Media case.
from all five of you, if you agree with this decision, please.