Zcash Community Grants Meeting Minutes 8/19/2024

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

Attendance:

  • Amber
  • Brian
  • GGuy
  • Jason
  • Michael
  • Alex (ZF notetaker)

Key Takeaways:

Open Grant Proposals

  • Zcash Community Wallet Developer- Jason provided background for this grant. This grant is from Pacu to serve as the Zcash Community Wallet Developer for the 3rd and 4th quarter in 2024. The grant request amount is for $15,000 per month, which is consistent with the rate that he’s received for previous grants.
    • ZCG had a call with Pacu, revisioning his role from a “floater” developer to ecosystem coordinator. ZCG offered him $7,500 to work in a developer relationship role and Pacu countered with $10,000 per month. Jason said Pacu has relationships with everyone in the ecosystem so he can add value in multiple ways, including potentially assisting with zcashd depreciation. The committee feels that Pacu can be wordy in his reports and his value is hard to assess and quantify. Amber thinks the grant amount is still too much. Gguy would approve, he thinks that while it can be hard to measure value, for the amount of the grant is asking, he thinks ZCG and Zcash get value from this grant. Michael doesn’t have a lot of trust in Pacu’s ability to prioritize and he thinks he needs more oversight than he currently receives. He doesn’t see a super-positive impact and ZCG isn’t equipped to oversee this role. Brian hears and appreciates the comments raised, he finds it difficult to rate the return from Pacu’s role but he sees positive feedback from many in the ecosystem who have clearly benefited from Pacu as a point of contact. Brian sees value in Pacu’s work with ZCG grantees. Brian would approve. Jason supports Pacu and the work he’s done and votes to approve the grant. He noted that if Pacu doesn’t demonstrate value and increase his visibility as an ecosystem contributor, the committee always has the option to vote to cancel the grant.
    • ZCG votes to approve 3-2 for $10k/month for 12 months for a total of $120,000 USD. Monthly updates, category is “Dedicated Resource”.
  • Zcash Shielded Asset Swaps and Transaction Acceptance - Jason summarized this grant. This proposal is from the QEDIT team and replaces the stablecoin grant, which was canceled on July 17. QEDIT proposes a new grant to advance Zcash Shielded Assets (ZSAs) by implementing core features outlined in ZIP 228, focusing on Asset Swaps and transaction acceptance. They plan to develop protocols for users to approve or reject incoming ZSA transactions, which gives the community better control and spam prevention.
    • Michael votes no, nothing personal and QEDIT has done a lot, but he’s not willing to commit more with nothing yet delivered from the first product. Brian approves. Amber appreciates Michael’s words but approves. Gguy approves because the community has shown support for this grant and QEDIT overall. Jason approves.
    • ZCG votes to approve 4-1. Monthly updates, category is “Infrastructure”. The $216,666.66 USD in start-up funding that was paid to QEDIT in July 2024 will be applied to this grant.
  • Generation Z - Jason gave background on this proposal. The “Generation Z” proposal requests $10,000 to fund a week-long educational bootcamp in Venezuela, targeting 30 youth, ages 13-17, to teach them about blockchain technology and Zcash. The bootcamp will include interactive sessions on content creation, cryptocurrencies, and entrepreneurship, with the goal of onboarding new Zcash users and Free2Z participants. The funding will cover venue rental, meals, merchandise, and staff compensation, with progress measured by new Zcash wallets and Free2Z accounts created.
    • After the last call, Jason reached out to Dismad and Roosevelt and it was decided to reduce the grant amount to $7,000 with half possibly coming from ZCG and half from ZecHub’s DAO. The DAO voted to approve it last week, and ZCG unanimously supports funding the other $3,500. ZCG wants to be clear that, generally speaking, ZCG is not interested in funding conference sponsorships given our limited budget. However, ZCG has decided to approve this as a one off because (1) half is being funded by the ZecHub DAO, (2) there is strong community support for the grant, and (3) Roosevelt is an active Zcash community member who has a strong track record delivering on educational initiatives.
  • Keystone Hardware Wallet Support - The Keystone Team requests $180,900 to integrate Zcash support into their hardware wallet, including both transparent and shielded addresses. The project involves enabling Keystone to handle Zcash transactions and developing an SDK for Zashi (and other) wallet integration. The funds will cover development, research, and sample devices for testing, with milestones set for completing each component by October 2024. The Keystone team has been in touch with the ECC development team, and ECC is comfortable that the integration is possible in the defined time frame from a technical standpoint.
    • Michael has misgivings about the scale of their user base compared to competitors. He would vote to reject - it’s a research grant not a hardware grant… Brian said the platform is an interesting user case scenario, he is hesitant about the user base however he is in favor of approval. Gguy would vote to approve because a hardware wallet would create competition and get other wallets to support Zcash. Given the fraught history with hardware grants, Amber would be reluctant to approve except that ECC devs are in favor and that’s possibly a critical difference between success and failure. Jason agrees with Amber. Jason likes that it has the support of ECC’s leadership and core engineering teams, and he thinks the Keystone team will be engaged with devs and the community. Jason also mentioned possible Zashi integration, and the possibility of product marketing support from ECC. Jason approves; he thinks the community should have multiple hardware wallet options that support shielded ZEC. Brian said a significant difference is Ledger is focused on working on a desktop wallet while Keystone wallet would be useable for mobile wallets right out of the gate. ZCG is including a condition that Least Authority review the SDK and concerns addressed before final payout. Approved 4-1. Integration category, monthly updates.
  • Zingo Labs Accelerates zcashd Depreciation - Za Wilcox is requesting $76,000 to accelerate the deprecation of Zcashd by implementing key RPCs for Zebrad, which will help complete the transition from Zcashd. The funding will cover hardware, software, and compensation costs, with the project expected to deliver documented and tested RPC implementations. The goal is to facilitate the deprecation of Zcashd and enhance protocol development by October 2024.
    • Jason asked Za to connect with Pili and Daira-Emma to discuss the need and usefulness of this role. Brian agreed. Amber recused from the discussion… Michael needs to know for sure this role would “actually move the ball.”. Gguy needs time to review. Request stays open, too early to vote.

Brainstorm Session Follow-Ups

  • Plug and Play Node - Note received from Ahas: “If I decide to release the device without the audit and sell it (at most 20 units), would the committee or the Foundation be able to promote or support the device in anyway? Without mainstream support, I won’t be able to attract a target audience for buying the device, however, I can release the complete code hardware design file and tutorials on how to build and run the device yourself. I spent more than 18 months on this project and I want to show that there is an actual use case for this project and that this wasn’t just a waste of money for the ZCG.”

    • ZCG doesn’t want to spend money or resources to audit the code. Jason doesn’t think selling the device is something that ZCG should support given zcashd is being depreciated. Michael agreed, it’s a nonstarter but he’s happy ZCG gave Ahas a shot. Everyone agreed. Jason asked if documentation or publishing the code is useful. Brian said in the spirit of open source Ahas should release the code.

  • Steptoe - Audio file created. Waiting on Executive Summary and then will release the document to the community.

  • Sentiment Collection - Dan brought up the idea of using ZecHub to get sentiment on some grants, for ZCG to use as additional non-binding input for consideration, Jason to discuss on ZecHub’s next call. ZecHub to vote on it. ZCG also discussed using engineers as well as a discrete group for additional sentiment collection. Jason to reach out to Kris and Conrado to discuss. Could take a few weeks to get this together and test.

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