Below please find the latest @ZcashGrants meeting minutes and Public Dashboard link.
Attendance:
- Aditya
- Brian
- Burns
- Jason
- Michael
- Alex Bornstein (ZF resource)
- Daniel Wolande (ZF resource)
- Jack Gavigan (ZF resource)
- Danika Delano acting as notetaker
Key Takeaways:
- ZCG were generally supportive of the ToDeFi: Torino Decentralized Finance event sponsorship and decided that the next step is to have a call with the applicant.
- ZCG discussed the Subgroup membership testing on elliptic curves grant application and decided they need expertise input in order to make a decision.
- ZCG unanimously approved the Ahas Das - Run your own full node RFP submission grant.
- ZCG specified the expectations for the documentation milestone in the Ywallet grant that was recently approved saying it should be thorough and a guide for easy implementation.
- ZCG recently added Madison, who works at Edge in San Diego, to the Global Ambassador Program and is excited about her plan to organize in-person events. They also pointed out that with 10 ambassadors it is $126,000 annually so it’s a lot of bang for their buck.
- ZCG gave suggestions for the ZCG portion of the ZF Quarterly Report including average time from grant submission to decision.
- ZCG asked Dan to post on Twitter with the ZCG account when new grants are submitted and grant decisions are made.
- ZCG informed Jack that they will send him an email regarding ZCG committee members hours after the meeting.
- ZCG decided to cancel the Cake Wallet grant due to over 6 months of inactivity, leaving them the option to reapply on the Submittable grant platform
- ZCG asked ZF to provide them with promotional merchandise to be distributed when attending conferences.
Notes:
Open Grant Proposals
-
ToDeFi: Torino Decentralized Finance
- Jason explained that the applicant is requesting $2,500 for an event that is to be held early next year; the event will cover a wide range of topics; he shared that he thinks it is the first interesting event sponsorship proposal they have received; the org is well established and it’s worth having a conversation with the applicant to see how ZCG will be promoted; ZCG emphasized that it should be ZCG that is promoted, not Zcash; the applicant seems open to receiving input.
- Brian pointed out that it is lower in cost than previous sponsorship; it’s an interesting audience and he’d like to have a conversation.
- Aditya summarized the experience of the organizer and their ability to attract talent; he thinks they are the right people for the ZCG program; it feels like a good match.
- Burns said it seems like a good deal; it’s the right amount of coverage for the price.
- Michael said it was a legitimate ask.
- Aditya stated that he thinks it’s good to have a call with them. Michael clarified that they are only requesting partial funding for the grant. All agreed to have a call with the applicant as a next step.
-
Subgroup membership testing on elliptic curves
- Jason shared that the applicant has a strong background in elliptic cryptography and is requesting $15,000 for this grant; ZCG won’t be voting until the next meeting since it’s only been open for three days and they want to give more time for community feedback.
- Burns stated that they will need an expert to see if it’s desirable.
- Aditya said that would be a good idea because ECC and ZF have expertise; it’s good to have outside contributors; he clarified that it’s not a developer who is applying but it’s a plan to seek out developers to implement tests and one developer from zingo labs has volunteered; he wants to see how they plan to implement it.
- Michael stated that this is the type of thing ZCG should be funding. Aditya agreed and added that he wants to confirm they have a developer that can follow through on the grant.
-
Ahas Das - Run your own full node RFP submission
- Jason explained that this is a grant to develop a software package that makes it easy for people to run their own node. He shared that Aditya had reached out to an ECC engineer. Aditya said that the engineer he talked to at ECC has experience building a node on the Zcash network and will forward the feedback to Ahas that includes feedback that could be used to deliver milestones successfully.
- Aditya shared that he thinks the team is capable of delivering an easy to use Zcash node and he votes yes.
- Michael also voted yes, it’s a capable team and it has got to be done.
- Brian approved; he is eager to get to work, glad to receive feedback from the engineers.
- Burns also approved.
- Jason approved; Ahas has been diligent with following up with us and will work well to produce something that works. He asked Dan to give a public response via the RFP thread.
Brainstorm Session Follow Ups
- Follow up on Hanh’s milestones
- Jason asked Dan to relay to Hanh what is expected in terms of documentation for the 2nd milestone; the current documentation for WarpSync is minimal and ZCG would like him to add more thorough documentation for it. Aditya added that the documentation should help developers that want to take advantage of WarpSync; it should be easy to understand and implement.
- Global Ambassador Program
- Jason shared that ZCG spoke with 3 new candidates; one from Turkey that they rejected because they didn’t know much about Zcash; one from Uganda they put on the waitlist since they’re trying to cap the total number of ambassadors to 10; they made an offer to Madison from San Diego, CA and she has accepted, but is pending onboarding documentation; she runs HR and operations for Edge in an office in San Diego; she wants to hold in person events, which will allow us to tap into Edge’s network and cast a wider net; it’s a bit experimental but we’re all excited about her joining. If this works out it will be the first female ambassador, which is awesome, Aditya said it is great to have an ambassador focused on in-person events. Burns added that 10 ambassadors feels like the right number for the ambassadors, especially with the market. Aditya pointed out that ZCG has some ambassadors on a 3 month trial and are evaluating if we will continue.
- Jason shared that right now at 9 ambassadors it’s $9,500/ month and $114,000 annually; with 10 ambassadors it would be $10,500/month and $126,000 annually so ZCG gets a lot of bang for the buck from the program with regard to the annual cost. Aditya agreed that it’s the highest impact way to use community funds and we should keep it going to keep local communities engaged in Zcash developments.
- ZF Quarterly Report / ZCG Metrics
- Jason asked if ZF could add a slide in the quarterly report that shows a summary of when a grant is received and when a decision is made; they have received feedback that ZCG is taking six months to approve grants, but ZCG says the average time is 4-6 weeks, which is standard compared to other cryptocurrency grant processes. Dan listed examples of turnaround time ranging from 7-30 days. Alex said this wouldn’t be a problem and he will see how the information fits best into the report.
- Aditya also suggested adding fun stats like how many developers are involved in Zcash.
- Jason stated that since we now have 10 ambassadors, it would be nice to add a map that shows where they’re located; also could possibly include information about developers working on Zcash projects, such as Taylor, and the amount of dollars spent on crypto development. Alex said that ZF will see what information we have access to that we can translate into this.
- ZCG Twitter
- Jason brought up that ZCG is thinking about ideas of how to better use the ZCG Twitter account; it can be used to Tweet with links to the forum and minutes when a decision is made. Brian added that there can be tweets when a new grant is posted on the forums. Dan said he is happy to help with that. Jason suggested they leave this item on the agenda for the next meeting. Aditya volunteered to connect with Dan with the login information.
- Follow up on ZCG committee member hours
- Jason reminded everyone that in the last meeting that Jack asked the committee to put the committee hours ask in writing; they have done that and will email Jack after the meeting.
Miscellaneous
- Cake Wallet
- Jason stated that in Danika’s milestone update they noticed that it said that Dan has reached out and the grantees are still MIA and have not been KYCed; do we want to close it and hedge back Zec? Aditya said he is in support of doing that; the last committee approved it and the applicants have been MIA for more than 6 months; he doesn’t think ZCG should keep grants hanging around; we should close it and ask them to apply again. Michael and Brian agreed. Brian added that they recently funded Hanh’s retroactive grant and wants funding to go to something that is working for Zcash. Dan stated that there has been no contact after reaching out to them multiple times. Jason said that it makes sense to relay that ZCG wants to cancel the grant on the forum saying after reaching out multiple times and after x amount of months of no response they are canceling the grant and they can resubmit on the new platform. Burns asked if this is possible legally. Alex replied, yes, as per the grant terms and conditions it is in our discretion to cancel for any reason including non action.
- Conferences / Promotional Merchandise
- Jason shared that he and Aditya have booked conferences to attend throughout the year and asked if there is other promotional merchandise they can use such as extras from Zcon3. Danika informed them that they gave away all the merchandise from Zcon3 but she can share the designs with them.
- Jason said that he was thinking of stickers and pins. Aditya added that T-shirts would be nice and the next conference is on the 1st of November. Jack said he is happy for ZF to help, and told them ZF would circle up internally. Dan told the committee that he has about 100 pamphlets that he plans to distribute at Messari Mainnet this week. Jack told them that they can get more printed and shipped.