Hi all,
Here’s a recording of our convo. Thanks to all who stopped by!
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My two zats:
- The Zcash Media content published is of great quality but I expected more than 28 minutes of content as the output. I can’t say if my expectations were justified, though.
- I think this proposal would be more effective as a series of smaller proposals with clearer deliverables. For example, a “you’ve never heard of crypto - start here” package would be of very high value to help onboard new users.
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Thanks for doing this. A couple ideas I wanted to share that I didn’t hear covered on today’s spaces.
It’s been mentioned on format length in here, it seems you would be willing to create shorter-length clips. Thor mentioned that YT is promoting their “Clips” feature to compete with TikTok and IG.
Do you have any interest in using platforms other than YT? I noticed that there’s an inactive(?) TikTok handle for Zcash (TikTok). Perhaps ZFND can help get that name for you (with a trademark claim).
Second thing that no one really has mentioned yet for content is the current Zcash grants. It would be cool to do a sort of “Shark Tank Update” series where you feature past grants (@tm3k’s parachute, @LeCryptoMath’s QEDIT proposal, etc) in the following format: Update: Squatty Potty - Shark Tank - YouTube to help bring awareness/exposure to what the community has already funded/how it’s being used + any other relevant updates.
One other thing is the request of you covering podcasts. I’d probably say that most podcast production has peaked during 2020 (https://www.listennotes.com/podcast-stats/ – new podcasts by year), and overall, I don’t think it’s as good as an acquisition channel as video.
My .02 zats.
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Thanks for bringing this to our attention. It’s a clear trademark violation (neither ECC or ZF registered this username) and we’ve begun the takedown process.
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@mowealth28e made a really good point about the next phase of crypto possibly being the phase of mass adoption (in the twitter space).
It got me thinking about something banks have known for a long time. Bank loyalty. There is a ton of data out there about it and how it’s so strong that it’s not uncommon (at least historically) for people stay with the same bank their whole lives. Bank loyalty is so important to banks they start recruiting from school aged kids. This program is no longer being run in Australia but most of my generation will remember bringing in 50cents, $1, $2 into school every week to deposit into their account and learn about saving and earning interest. (School Banking - CommBank).
I feel like this is the stage we are at with crypto. All these young adopters (young as in early adopters, not age) are starting to pick which crypto they want to use in this new world of digital currency. Picking which crypto they feel comfortable using online, at the local cafe, in big chain stores, and even possibly holding large amounts of their savings in. “Crypto loyalty” isn’t even a term I’ve heard used before but I think it’s going to be extraordinarily important. Once a users pick which cryptocurrency to use for their daily transactions it’s going to be be much harder to convince a user to change to Zcash after they are already using a different crypto for their daily transactions. We want to recruit young users NOW, just as the banks did with school children, because some of these users will end up being life long users of Zcash!
So while $1.8m sounds like a lot now, the people we educate about Zcash now are going to be the same people advising their friends and family which crypto to use. If word of mouth is one of the best kinds of marketing, we want Zcash Media to not only help recruit more mouths, but also enable those mouths to better communicate the benefits of Zcash. Every new viewer isn’t just a potential new user of Zcash, they are also a potential new household, a potential new friendship circle, a potential new community, that adopt Zcash into their daily lives.
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Yes, this is exactly the content that I can proudly show to all my family and friends. Because it inspires trust. “Ok, I trust to Zcash” - his is a real feedback on the videos that I showed. Try to earn trust in the modern world! Especially in the field of cryptocurrencies. This is not a cartoon infographic, with goofy smiling characters carrying their money into another scam, this is professional content with the first authoritative persons of the industry who say reasonable things. Things with which it is impossible to argue.
I’ve seen a lot of arguments here about the number of views. How many views will we have if we don’t create content at all? The answer is obvious - none. Imagine that you are cycling to a neighboring city and somewhere on the road you are lamenting: “I’ve ridden so little!” But if your goal is to come to a neighboring city - you just need to pedal without stopping.
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Good morning fellow zodlers!
Im new to the crypto sphere, about a year and a half into this amazing rabbit hole. I previously knew of bitcoin and ethereum and always thought of it as a scam. It never made sense to me. Why would anyone ever want there banking information to be public. I never thought of as the future besides the blanket term of blockchain. About a year ago i stumbled upon $amp and the flexa network and through my research and following of some of their members i came across some zcash feeds and began to watch its price. Around that time i saw “@zcashmedia” retweet from someone named “zooko”. i had previously seen him in a rumored commercial tweet so i knew he was important but didnt really know anything about what i didnt know. (that part still cracks me up). I started digging in, about a week or two in, zcash media started promoting its videos. At this point in time i thought crypto was cool. Then the first video was released. This video wrecked my world for the better. Honestly, i dont know if i hadnt seen that video, i doubt i would understand the basis of blockchain the way i do now. Over the next few days after i watched the video, thats all i could talk about. showing my friends and co workers. I was sold. Then there were the few encrypted messages that you could interact with to find out about J.D. Then it was revealed on the 2nd video and i was absolutely hooked. Everything about the videos was amazing. I cant wait to find out whats in store for the next year or two for zcash media. These videos along with a few others ive seen is what prompted me to begin sharing my spedning sprees. I truly cant wait for more places to open up to digital spending and only think its possible with the simplest of means. Fun videos documenting use case and explaining what the tech does “like im 5” is what the world needs and zcash media did exactly that!
happy saturday to all!
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I am for this grant.
1.8 million is not a lot of money for what they are proposing.
The goal is to reach 4-6 billion people.
That’s less than a penny per person.
To me the biggest risk here is not going through with this.
You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.
As others have mentioned this is the time to build. If this next up cycle is mainstream adoption we have to be well positioned and look the part.
Don’t listen to what other coin enthusiasts think or feel. We are not that. We don’t have to shill and create hype we have a serious web 3 solution.
We aren’t catering to the crypto crowd we are going after the ones yet to participate.
Majority of people I speak to have no idea bitcoin is even public. Time to let the world know.
I feel like we are blessed and lucky to even have such a credible production company not only willing to do this but actually they love Zcash as well!
This is all about eduction and the psychology of empowering the individual to realize this is for the better of humanity not just some random folks money grabbing like a lot of these other projects.
This grant allows education around privacy to take on a new leg now.
I worked in the television and film business for 15 years in New York City. I’ve won Emmy awards at Mlb network and personally worked hands on with some of the biggest names in entertainment and politics.
Honestly a lot of legitimate production companies such as 37 Laines would have a budget way higher than this. Even just to pay a 12 person team 1.8 mil wouldn’t cut it and that’s without pricing in gear and equipment!
Those first three videos were great and impressed a lot of people. Over 2,000 subscribers and six figure views. Now is the time to build on that momentum and keep this thing going.
Let’s give them something to talk about.
Over and out.
Respectfully,
Thor Torrens
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A couple thoughts:
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I really hope 37L will continue to make high quality Zcash videos.
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$1.8MM is too large a percentage of the ZCG budget at current ZEC market rates.
If we were at $600 per ZEC I would say ‘go for it’. At current market rates, maybe it is best to submit a scaled down proposal for now, with the intention of submitting more proposals in the future?
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Honestly, after reading most of the posts that are against the proposal it seems that the strongest objection is the size of the grant.
Idk, maybe instead of only having ZCGC fund it in its whole perhaps ECC (@joshs) and ZFD(@decentralistdan) can also jump in and pay their share? That puts it at 600k per entity. Would this be acceptable @David_Heisenberg?
This has been proposed multiple times I think with @gottabeJay being the first.
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Agreed. I’d argue most thought this if they learned of bitcoin from around 2014 and onward. This is roughly when the narrative changed in most online circles to “digital gold” with less focus on digital p2p cash. This isn’t talked about enough.
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Regarding a few comments about the size of the grant, there are a couple reasons why we decided to go for a ~14 month proposal instead of bite size pieces.
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Efficiency. Being able to put our heads down and work for more than 12 months straight will have great benefits to continuity and efficiency. Stopping and starting in between grants likely results in at least 2x less efficiency. There is a major economy of scale at play by being able to work continuously. Once people’s minds are wrapped around a project, it is so much easier to keep going than it is to stop and start. Also, the development of just the grant itself is a full-time, unpaid job. It has been almost two months of unpaid work to develop and respond to this grant. I totally get the sentiment that it would be safer or more controllable to stop and start, but, if I were to give my honest opinion what I think would actually best get the job done, having less time spent on grant management and more time spent on working is the way to go (and this is coming from someone who has probably spent some of the most time building extensive grants and grant reporting of people in the community). I would much rather spend more time up front answering questions, brainstorming with people, evaluating the proposal than having to do it many times over throughout the next year or two. Plus, it is much more enjoyable and fulfilling to be doing the work we have to set out to do - effectively communicating to the world why Zcash matters - than it is to be doing grants. (This is just an honest, on-the-ground opinion from a ZCG grantee.)
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Keeping with the mission of ZIP-1014. ZIP-1014 established the Major Grants slice of the dev fund, which receives the most ZEC of any Zcash-supporting entity. It’s mission, as stated in ZIP-1014, is: “This slice of the Dev Fund is intended to fund independent teams entering the Zcash ecosystem, to perform major ongoing development (or other work) for the public good of the Zcash ecosystem, to the extent that such teams are available and effective.” I personally believe our proposal is in keeping with the very mission that the Major Grants slice of the dev fund was created for: we are creating educational materials for the public good of Zcash and we are an “available and effective” team. Furthermore, ZIP-1014 states: “Priority SHOULD be given to Major Grants that bolster teams with substantial (current or prospective) continual existence, and set them up for long-term success, subject to the usual grant award considerations (impact, ability, risks, team, cost-effectiveness, etc.). Priority SHOULD be given to Major Grants that support ecosystem growth, for example through mentorship, coaching, technical resources, creating entrepreneurial opportunities, etc.” We have “substantial continual experience” and we are trying to be set up for “long-term success” for “ecosystem growth”.
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For those interested in topics of the episodes:
Video form of this proposal:
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This grant must be funded, and here’s my reasons:
- @37L is the right team for the right mission, and if you think that you can get the right people always, just think of other grants where there’s no luck of finding the right people.
- The majority of crypto projects are spending a lot of money on media and Zcash must be no exception.
- Zcash features are more than enough to be highly used and it’s time to spend on media to get Zcash used.
- The videos that were made by Zcash Media were shared by many famous Zcash Big Supporters such as naval, cryptopathic, barry silbert and many others, these people who rarely share something about Zcash and who have a big impact on the market.
- I don’t want the grant to be trapped in the loop of waiting Zcash price how is going to be and taking action accordingly, It’s pretty hard to time the market, or know the top or the bottom of the market, and no one can plan with this high uncertainty.
- As Zcash community we should not care if haters gonna say, because whatsoever we do, haters will always criticize us.
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Hi folks! This whole grant discussion has nothing directly to do with Electric Coin Co, but speaking for myself, just as a Zcash community member and a ZEC holder, I support this grant.
For starters, because from my perspective the first Zcash Media grant has been highly effective. I had the experience of sending people the first two videos and really getting their attention, both with big influencers like Naval Ravikant, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, Barry Silbert, etc and also with my friends and family members who never seemed to “get” what I do until they watched the first video ( 
).
I think the first two videos are probably a part of why the sentiment toward Zcash both inside and outside the Zcash community has become more positive (even despite the bear market). I imagine that a steady cadence of videos with this excellent quality could really attract a lot of newcomers to Zcash and rally the Zcash community in the coming year.
The other reason I support this grant is because something I’ve learned over the years in business is to focus on people. There’s a saying in business “In the long run, culture eats strategy for breakfast.”. And culture is made of people. My personal interactions with the Zcash Media folks (mainly David, Natasha and Jeff), plus their public interactions that I’ve watched, plus the skill and care that I is evident in their videos has convinced me that they are a long-term asset.
Zcash has an ability to attract and retain the best people to join the mission — our mission of economic freedom and opportunity for the entire world and for future generations. It’s a strategic advantage that few or maybe no other competitors can match. IMHO getting Zcash Media is a unique opportunity, and one that won’t come again.
I’d advise my fellow members of the Zcash community to think of this, not as spending money to get a series of videos, but as using the “Major Grants” slice of the Dev Fund to attract and integrate a high-quality team into our ecosystem, just like the original ZIP 1014 envisioned.
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Last bull run
Thoughts - “This time is different! Zcash has the best tech and a better wallet then last time! To the moon!”
Reality - barely touched $300
Next bull run
Option 1
Thoughts - “This time is different! Zcash has the best tech and a better wallet then last time! To the moon!”
Reality - ?
Option 2
Thoughts - “This time is different! Zcash Media is the number 2nd/3rd/4th/5th most subscribed specialised (Zcash) cryptocurrency media outlet on YouTube! Zcash ALSO has the best tech and a better wallet then last time! To the moon!”
Reality - ?
ZEC hasn’t hit $600 since 2018. ZEC didn’t hit $600 in the last bull run. Why will the next bull run be different? Because we have the best tech and slightly better wallet? We said that last time. Zcash went below $30 in 2020. $30 ZEC (~50% drop) is far more likely then $600 ZEC (%1000% increase).
Nothing wrong with the strategy of integrating education / marketing into Zcash ecosystem. That said, we need to be frugal to survive & provide sustained funding of the ecosystem in the years to come.
I’m supportive of retroactive funding, because it’s hard to know in advance the potential impact of an effort or even measurable in real time. For example, 37L listed YouTube views as a target KPI — which is 500k per video (6M in total). But what is the time horizon? 1 month? or 3 months or more? How about measuring growth of ZEC wallet app downloads, transaction volume etc.
Few final thoughts:
- Clear sentiment that cost is high, would love to see visible adjustments to grant size.
- Split the grant into two parts: 1) Milestone based monthly payment 2) Metrics based (37L can work with community & ZCG on short & long term KPIs) retroactive payment. Latter gives Zcash community confidence that 37L is innit for Zcash success not just as an entity who is doing work.
- Obligation for ZCG to stop the grant at anytime if ZEC crashes (grant cost becomes large percent of reserves) +/- short term KPIs are not reached +/- community isn’t happy with the output of 37L.
Thanks!
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It’s the FUD on Zcash by Monero community that stopped Zcash from growing mostly. Next, people didn’t want to use trusted setup! Hardware shielded wallet didn’t exist, it doesn’t for few more months! Many other reasons.
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I haven’t seen any noticeable difference on Twitter though. There was a lot of arguing regarding Orchard license until recently.
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Try to experiment with feedback by showing this video to several people and you will see a positive reaction.
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