Below please find the latest @ZcashGrants meeting minutes and Public Dashboard link.
Attendance:
- Aditya
- Brian
- Jason
- Michael
- Alex Bornstein (ZF resource)
- Daniel Wolande (ZF resource)
- Jack Gavigan (ZF resource)
- Danika Delano acting as notetaker
Key Takeaways:
- All ZCG members approved Free2z: Private Peer-To-Peer Giving
- ZCG rejected Tao: Asynchronous Payment channels for stable coins
- ZCG rejected ContiDAO - Mass Adoption of ZEC
- ZCG rejected Zcash Family Road Trip
- ZCG decided to revisit IRL Zcash Community Hub in Downtown Austin, TX in the next meeting to see if there is more community interest.
- Jason brought up his forum post on staggering ZCG elections. ZF confirmed they will take care of the ZCAP expansion and ZCG election logistics.
- ZCG discussed that they would like to continue the Zcash Ambassador Program with the current ambassadors (and add a few more over the coming months) until the end of the year if the community supports the extension.
- ZCG emphasized they are interested in funding long-term projects.
- ZCG will start the licensing discussion with 37 Laines after they report on their Zcash Media launch review.
- Aditya announced he finished creating a code of conduct that governs interactions with ZCG and discussed the process of adding it to the grant application with ZF.
- Alex provided a comms update on behalf of Winnie
- Moving the next meeting to not conflict with a US public holiday.
Notes:
Hudson’s Absence
- Jason explained that Hudson is planning to be off the next few weeks and will roll off on June 30, the committee will ping him in Signal chat for votes since they require all members to be present to vote.
Open Grant Proposals
-
Free2z: Private Peer-To-Peer Giving
- Jason summarized that the one outstanding issue is legal fees; they had proposed giving him a retainer with the requirement that he provides evidence if he needs to use it for the 4th milestone. He posted to the forum that he wants $5k up front and $100K for legal fees on retainer.
- Dan reviewed his grant proposal and said that he will have him edit it on the grant platform to match the legal info discussed on the forum. Jason said he will also follow up with him.
- Aditya asked if ZF will help in releasing funds. Jason asked if it mattered who they would release the funds to. Alex replied that Free2z will need to review and approve the bill so it would make the most sense to pay the grantee like a regular milestone and they can pay the legal bill.
- Alex asked if the committee wants him to use the legal funds for specific legal purposes; if so, he recommends making it clear what he can use it for and what he can’t so it is 100% defined. Jason said that they talked about it with him that it has to be related to business but didn’t set more specific guidelines. Alex replied that they could put it in general headings and nothing else; a lot of the root of the challenges we run into is not proactively thinking through potential miscommunication. Aditya voiced that ZCG is fine with content moderation, legal fees related to content, and operations. Jason asked if he gives ZCG something that is a gray area, can we use ZF attorneys to determine if it’s outside the scope of what we deemed relevant? Aditya added that they want to approve the legal retainer. Alex told them that Dan can reach out to the applicant and ask what their parameters are and then say if they plan to do anything outside that, they will need approval from the committee. Brian stated that the 3 headings could be: 1) Entity setup 2) Legal advice around content and 3) Regulatory considerations.
- Aditya said that they could add a statement about a security audit; they should first implement the best security practices and provide codebase access to an external auditor and then work on fixing items that have been identified. Brian added it will come after we craft the RFP for audit.
- Aditya volunteered to help Dan craft the language. Brian commented that they don’t need to require it as a milestone but they should be willing and open to participate in an audit.
- All members approved
-
Tao: Asynchronous Payment channels for stable coins
- Jason summarized that this grant proposed to build a payment channel on top of ETH. The committee has discussed and wants to reject.
-
ContiDAO - Mass Adoption of ZEC
- Jason summarized that they started a dao focusing on lack of internet access. The committee has discussed and decided it’s a general reject. Brian added that there is a lack of community interest overall for both the TAO and DAO grants.
-
Zcash Family Road Trip
- Jason summarized that the applicant is requesting $250K to buy a Lexus and drive across the US promoting Zcash; the biggest thing that turned people off is buying a $100K car and it’s not the kind of marketing that ZCG should be funding. The committee rejected this proposal.
-
IRL Zcash Community Hub in Downtown Austin, TX
- Jason summarized that they are asking to open a Zcash community hub in Austin; ZCG wants to see if there are more community members that show interest; they will revisit at the next meeting.
Brainstorm Meeting Follow Ups
- Staggering elections
- Jason stated that he posted to the forum on the topic of staggering elections and requested feedback, but it has been quiet; he wants to ensure ZF has a plan in place for the elections and asked if ZF needs anything from ZCG like creating a thread to call for candidates. Jack replied that ZF will take care of all this; we will post about the ZCAP expansion and about the election itself.
- Global Ambassador Program
- Jason brought up that the 3 month period, initially proposed to the ambassadors is up on May 31; ZCG would like to continue the program; they will create a post and will highlight a few activities and recommend to the community to keep current ambassadors on and to nominate more; they don’t have to start June 1st but will hopefully add more ambassadors over the next few months.
- Alex brought up that they will have to extend their IC agreements; he will wait to see the results of the public discourse and get further direction from ZCG before he reaches out to them.
- Jason asked if this should be year to year in case the next committee doesn’t want to continue with the program. Alex pointed out that there is a 30 day “cancel without any reason” clause in the agreement. Aditya suggested they should keep it to the end of the calendar year and they should ask current ambassadors if they want to continue. Jack shared that he doesn’t think it’s unfair to take on a grant that lasts beyond the end of the year; he’s heard feedback about some concerns about ZCG funding in that most grants are bite size chunks like 6 months and could be discouraging to teams that want to have longer projects. Jason replied that ZCG doesn’t tell people that they only want short term; we are open to multiple year grants; he asked Jack to elaborate. Jack said it could be based on the Arti project but that is purely speculation and doesn’t have further details. Jason asked Jack to let ZCG know what we can do to make it clear that ZCG is interested in long term relationships. Jack commented, at the moment ZCG’s model is having clear milestones with clear deliverables and for a longer term it may be that a more flexible approach may be better if the community trusts the team like the community did ZF and ECC.
- ZF licensing expert recommendations
- Jason shared he reached out to 37L and 37L indicated they will start the licensing discussion after they report and request their final milestone. Dan said that he hasn’t received any response from creative commons org.
- Code of Conduct / Terms and conditions
- Aditya updated everyone that he created a code of conduct that govern interactions with ZCG and asked if it can be included as part of the terms and conditions in the grant agreement as it applies to current and prospective applicants who may have relationships with 3rd parties; ZCG wants all the work they do is in line with regulatory policies. Alex replied that he will look at the language and check if there is duplication or contradictions with the current T & C and have a conversation with ZCG with any concerns. Aditya said he will share before making it a part of the grant approval process.
Comms
- Alex provided a comms update on behalf of Winnie.
Next Meeting
- Jason brought up that the next meeting is scheduled on Memorial Day, a US public holiday, and asked to reschedule. Everyone said they are able to move it to Tuesday, May 31st, 15 minutes after the regular meeting time.