Below please find the latest ZCG meeting minutes and Public Dashboard link.
Attendance:
- Amber
- Brian
- GGuy
- Jason
- Michael
- Jack (ZF resource)
- Alex (ZF resource)
- Dan (ZF resource)
- Deidra M (notetaker)
Key Takeaways:
- Open Grant Proposals
- ZURE: Phase 2 - The committee voted to reject this proposal.
- Brainstorm Session Follow-Ups
- Treasury - USD surplus to be maintained.
- QEDIT - The QEDIT team submitted two new grant proposals.
- Zcash Media - The committee met with the Zcash Media team to discuss the distribution plan and also decided to pause Milestone 2 of this grant.
- NH infra Support - ZCG and ZF discussed Nighthawk wallet service operations and potential impacts on users.
- Chainsafe Draft Proposal - Negotiations are still ongoing.
- ZCG Organizational Structure - ZCG is exploring organizational restructuring options.
Open Grant Proposals
- ZURE: Phase 2 - 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.
- The committee had previously spoken about this project in depth and was ready to vote.
- Michael voted to reject and said that he felt there was no substantive value in continuing the project. After her presentation at ZconV, he felt there needed to be actionable items presented. Amber said she was on the fence because she thought that Zcash should focus on adoption outside the community, yet this project focuses on the community within. She also referenced the pressure on the treasury and voted to reject it. GGuy voted to approve this proposal because he felt all feedback was valuable. Brian said he sees that some voices in the community see value in this project, but because of budget constraints, he doesn’t feel this is a necessary spend for the Grants Committee and voted to reject it. Brian added that he thought the initial research needed time to set so that other people who value this research, i.e., ECC, could implement her findings into products. He said he would consider funding this proposal later if market conditions improve. Jason said he believes Tatyana’s research project is essential, and he appreciates her passion and hard work. Jason voted to approve it. He said it has been a vibrant community project that has provided meaningful data and feedback that can help improve user adoption and inform future development efforts.
- ZCG rejected this proposal by a vote of 3-to-2.
- The committee had previously spoken about this project in depth and was ready to vote.
Brainstorm Session Follow-Ups
- Treasury - ZCG discussed the treasury holdings with Jack and confirmed they would prefer to maintain the current USD surplus ($804,000) pending upcoming grant decisions.
- QEDIT - The QEDIT team recently submitted a grant proposal to cover legal expenses, a revision of their current Asset Swap proposal so that they can focus on Zebra feature development, and a revision of their draft stablecoin proposal to discuss with ZCG.
- Jason asked Dan to remind QEDIT to follow the normal process of posting their grant on the forum to get community feedback and amend their grant as previously discussed.
- Zcash Media
- Last week, ZCG met with Zcash Media (ZM) to discuss their distribution plan. ZM shared their strategy, which involves releasing a new long-form video each month, along with a continuous stream of shorter videos and promotional content. Their goal is to sustain interest over time and provide the community with a steady stream of engaging material.
- ZM’s grant only covers video production and does not include distribution. While ZCG is okay with ZM overseeing distribution, no additional grants or financial assistance will be given to support their distribution plan. In addition, promotional materials ZM creates as part of their distribution strategy cannot be applied to future milestone deliverables.
- The community will support the video releases. For example, the Decentralizing Digital Task Force, along with other community members and organizations, will create additional material to support and promote the video releases.
- ZCG has decided to pause Milestone #2, which means that ZM cannot initiate production on the videos for the second milestone until ZCG evaluates the response to the release of the Milestone #1 videos. ZCG will take community feedback and other aspects into consideration. Key factors for assessment will include impressions and engagement analytics on Twitter, views, and subscribers on YouTube, meeting or exceeding ZM’s stated goals on click-through rate and retention (above 4% and 40%, respectively), ensuring the videos elicit meaningful engagement and social interaction, and other relevant metrics.
- ZCG emphasized the need for improved communication and community engagement from the ZM team. Going forward, ZCG will require ZM to provide monthly forum updates. During distribution, the monthly updates will summarize their distribution activities and provide metrics to help ZCG evaluate their performance. If ZCG decides to proceed with Milestone #2, the monthly updates will provide progress reports on the status of video production and release. ZCG will communicate these new reporting requirements to the ZM team. Additionally, ZCG would like to see ZM maintain an active presence on social media channels like Twitter.
- NH infra Support - Pacu posted on the forum that he and Dan received a 30-day notice from Nighthawk about Zcash Block Explorer and lightwalletd servers. Jason asked Jack if ZCG or Pacu should be doing this because the deadline is two weeks away.
- Jack suggested that Pacu reach out to Aditya from Nighthawk. He said the solution does not have to be transferring the domain immediately. Aditya could put in CNAME DNS records when he switches off the Nighthawk servers so that people are automatically redirected to other lightwalletd servers. This would allow the Nighthawk wallet to continue working. However, users should ideally use their seed phrase to migrate to another wallet.
- ZCG will follow up with Pacu on this.
- Chainsafe Draft Proposal - Jason gave the update on negotiations with this team.
- ZCG rejected the new price of this grant at $175,000 but is open to exploring a scaled-down version.
- Jason will contact this team about a lower price and update the committee once he hears back from Bryant.
- ZCG Organizational Structure - The committee has been exploring the idea of ZCG independence and ZCG’s structure after the next halving as a group and with Alex from ZF. The conversation is in the early stages.
- Jason said ZCG drafted a ZIP about this that gives ZCG a path to independence if community sentiment supports it and it is economically feasible. However, since ZEC is almost $20, he feels that now wouldn’t be a good time to make that transition. Brian said ZCG could amend the draft ZIP to present options to the community that would enable ZCG to make the move when appropriate conditions are met.
- Jason asked Jack when the next ZCAP poll was taking place. Jack said the next two ZCAP polls will happen at the end of May and June, including voting on the ZCG members whose terms are expiring. Jason asked Jack if adding the topic of ZCG independence and related options to the poll was possible for either poll. Jack said that ZF needs to be careful to avoid overwhelming ZCAP in each poll by including too much in one poll. Jack also said that the decision-making process for ZCG independence/structure should be broken into several stages, with the first stage to gauge the confidence that there will be a Dev Fund and then give the community the options. Jason agreed.