Zcash Community Grants Meeting Minutes 7/24/23

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

Zcash Community Grants Committee Google Meet Meeting: July 24, 2023

[Minutes taken by Deidra M]

Attendance:

  • Brian
  • GGuy
  • Jason
  • Michael
  • Alex (ZF resource)
  • Daniel (ZF resource)
  • Deidra M (notetaker)

Key Takeaways:

Open Grant Proposals

  • Bird Calls - Formally posted the second phase of the project, the integration phase, asking for $245,600. They think it will take a significant amount of work to integrate BTCpay into Birdcalls. At the 05/29 meeting, the committee voted to put Birdcalls on “hold.”.

    • The committee will leave this grant proposal as an open agenda item and revisit it in future meetings.

  • UniFFI Library Addenda - Jason gave the background for this resubmitted proposal as he has a conflict of interest with Eiger and did not give his opinion or vote. The committee rejected it at the May 25th meeting, citing that ZCG wanted the UniFFI team to finish their original grant and demonstrate that the UniFFI Library is something that the Zcash community can easily use. They completed Milestone 5 of the previous grant and have re-submitted this second proposal. The UniFFI team is asking for $96,000 to

    • (1) move the UniFFI-supported library closer to the original library
    • (2) create a small demo of a wallet showcasing how to use this library on Android and iOS.
    • Michael, GGuy, and Brian voted to approve this grant with the addition of synchronization in this proposal.
    • After the meeting, Amber approved via Signal.
    • This grant will be required to provide updates/reports on a milestone basis and a demo after completion of the second milestone.

  • Ywallet Maintenance & Minor Improvements - Jason outlined this proposal. It’s for $150,000 for Ywallet maintenance and support. Notable about the proposal is that Hanh hired a team to help him support Ywallet. Here is what it will include:

    • 1 Year Maintenance of YWallet covering:
      1. Implementation of Protocol / Network Rules. Ex: ZIP 317.
      2. Configurable Auto shielding (based on time/block distance)
      3. Minor Improvements
      4. User Support on Discord
      5. Bug fixes

The 1-year maintenance does not cover significant changes such as support of a new pool, aggregation, ZSA, or Shielded Swaps.

  • The committee discussed this at their last two brainstorm sessions and voted to approve this grant.

  • After the meeting, Amber approved via Signal.

  • Reporting requirements: Hanh must give monthly updates.

  • Nighthawk Wallet Maintenance and Self-Funding Improvements - The NH team is asking for $180,000 for one year of wallet maintenance and self-funding improvements.

    • ZCG discussed this grant at their latest brainstorm session and voted to reject this proposal.
    • Reasons for rejecting:
      1. Overlap of milestones with the current project (i.e., Nighthawk’s current grant covers maintenance).
      2. ZCG capped wallet developers at $350K, and approving this grant would cause NH to exceed the cap.
      3. ZCG mentioned giving wallet developers additional funding if the market recovered; however the market has not recovered, it’s gotten worse.
    • Michael said although he values Nighthawk’s infrastructure and ecosystem participation, he needed more faith in Nighthawk’s team to deliver something usable as this wallet has shown to be one of the weaker wallets. The committee agreed.
    • After the meeting, Amber voted to reject via Signal.

  • My Money Credit - The applicant is asking for $10,000 for My Money Credit, which is an on-chain finance platform providing secure and private credit services and financial products to everyone.

    • The committee discussed this in their most recent brainstorm and voted to reject it. This proposal is not within the scope of something ZCG would like to fund, and it’s unclear how it uses or benefits Zcash.
    • Dan will send the standard rejection to notify the applicants.
    • After the meeting, Amber voted to reject via Signal.

  • Zcash Wallet Community Developer - Pacu, a former employee of ECC, is asking for $70,778 to be a floating wallet developer contributing to different Zcash wallet teams, like Nighthawk and Zingo. He will also support ZCG in articulating community-funded efforts. He’ll also work on the light client working group and be active in the community as a resource.

    • They discussed this at their brainstorm session and concluded that this role is a needed resource. Overall, the committee feels this is a good fit for the ecosystem.
    • The grantee would start in August and go until the end of the year. ZCG will consider these five months as a trial period, and the new committee can decide whether to continue with this role with Pacu.
    • This grantee will be required to give monthly reports to ZCG.
    • Dan will notify Pacu that his proposal was approved and what the reporting requirements will be, which will be similar to Taylor’s.
    • After the meeting, Amber voted to approve via Signal.

  • Dacade: Peer-to-peer learning community - The applicant is asking for $50,000 to create a Zcash learning community on Dacade.org to foster education and project development within the Zcash ecosystem.

    • The grant was posted four days ago, so it’s too early for the committee to vote on it. ZCG will vote on this at the next meeting.
    • Although all ZCG members need to do more research on this grant, they voiced that this does not look like there is a need for it. GGuy also noted that after four days of this proposal on the forum there was no community input or discussion.

Brainstorm Session Follow-Ups

  • RFP Idea Form

    • ZCG received a submission, and all members agreed that this submission is not a good fit for Zcash.
    • Dan will contact the applicant to inform them that the committee will not move forward with this idea.

  • Transparency Reporting Requirements

    • At the last meeting, ZCG discussed deciding what content is needed for grantees’ reporting requirements. Applicants could pitch to the committee how they want to report updates. The required content will vary depending on grant type and frequency. Other factors would be technical vs non-technical grants.
    • Jason used UniFFI Library Addenda as an example. He asked the committee what they thought to ask for. GGuy answered that ZCG should ask grantees to provide demos for the committee and the broader community at each milestone. Michael said yes, and that would be great to see.
    • Most grants will be unspecified, but the committee can ask the grantee for something if needed. There has been precedence in this practice, like QEDIT.

  • Dashboard: Grants Category

    • Michael and Jason have distinguished the different categories for the Dashboard. Jason will include this new specification in his presentation at Zcon.
    • Jason will send these categories to Dan to add to the Dashboard once everyone returns from the conference.
3 Likes
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Has this been discussed with NH? I assume they’re not submitting overlapping grants on purpose. I think it’s important that ZCG and NH are on the same page regarding what’s expected from the current grant, which doesn’t seem to be the case