Hey Zcash Community - my first time posting, glad to be here.
Zcash’s legitimacy as a privacy-preserving asset is validated by adoption, and given Zcash is a financial asset, that adoption is measured by price. That is, the value the free market places upon ZEC as a privacy-preserving store-of-value.
With this in mind, the next leg up for Zcash adoption will be to integrate institutional players who hold large portions of value. I’m not talking about ETFs and DATs yet, instead I’m looking at phase 1 of institutions: High-Net Worth Individuals (HNWIs) and Family Offices (FOs). Bitcoin has been through the process of being accepted by this cohort, and has succeeded all the way to ETFs and DATs. To advance Zcash, gaining acceptance from HNWIs and FOs should be a priority imo.
I come from a traditional finance background (Econ grad, CAIA, Fixed Income @ Wellington Management), and am deeply aware that the catalyst that took my institutional friends from being highly sceptical about, to believers in Bitcoin, was The Bitcoin Standard book. Other noteworthy contenders incl. The Sovereign Individual and Bitcoin Billionaires.
The reason to make this point is that, while of late there has been a lot of (i) retail focused education, and (ii) crypto-native firm education, e.g. Coinbase Zcash explainer and Galaxy note to clients, I think we are still missing a key piece of the puzzle.
I think we are missing a core educational block targeted specifically at institutional players. These will be the players that give Zcash it’s next leg up in adoption.
We do not have a ETF, or a DAT, so there will be no Wall Street analysts educating institutions on Zcash. We are luck to have crypto-native investment banks like Coinbase and Galaxy pushing the narrative, but we cannot solely rely on this.
Our trojan horse into the minds of HNWIs and FO investment professionals will be a Zcash equivalent of The Bitcoin Standard, The Privacy Standard. This is the kind of educational content that has knock on effects. If successful, authors will likely being invited to speak to HNWIs and FOs to communicate Zcash design and ethos.
Consider this a temperature check, and starting discussion point for the following:
- Does the community agree that a Zcash equivalent to The Bitcoin Standard would be beneficial?
- If so, who should be the committee of ghost writers that contribute to the book?
- Who should be the front-man author of the book?
I personally would love the opportunity to contribute to ghost writing such a book, but it would require buy-in from high-calibre individuals, and months of effort.
Thoughts?
