ZDA Meeting Summary - 4/23

Governance ZDA
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ZDA Summary - Q2 2020

The Zcash Developer Alliance held a kickoff meeting on Thursday April 23rd. To promote transparency and avoid inertia, Electric Coin Company will post a short summary after each quarterly ZDA meeting. This is the summary from the discussion.

In attendance

Company Names
Agoric Dean Tribble, Vanessa Pestritto, Brian Warner, Mark Miller
ConsenSys Tom Borgers, Robert Drost, Joseph Chow
Electric Coin Nathan Wilcox, David Campbell, Zooko Wilcox, Steven Smith, Josh Swihart, Elena Giralt
Iqlusion Zaki Manian
Kyber Loi Luu
Thesis Matt Luongo
Bolt Labs Ayo Akinyele, Colleen Swanson

Discussion

  • ZDA Overview: Nathan covered meeting goals and Zcash milestones from the past 4 years. ZDA’s 2020 focus is shipping multiple cross-chain mechanisms. There is an opportunity now for other organizations to take on stakeholder involvement with Zcash especially post-NU4 with the advent of Major Grants.
  • Member introductions: Each member, starting with ECC, gave a brief overview of their mission, product, and connection to ZDA.
  • Operating principles: The expectation for ZDA is for each participating member to contribute to delivering something in support of the ZDA 2020 objectives.
    • ZDA members will engage the broader Zcash developer community by sharing their projects and subsequent updates directly on the Zcash community forum. ZDA members may also participate in the Zcash Gardening Club or be featured as a guest on a monthly Zeal call. ECC will maintain the ZDA site with up-to-date information concerning roadmaps, blockers and highlights for ZDA projects.
  • Overarching ZDA 2020 Objective: Bridging Zcash to other networks.
    • “My hope for 2020 is that every member of the group can contribute to the interoperability of Zcash.” Nathan Wilcox
    • “The goal should be to bring down the barrier to building something with Zcash.” Zaki Manian
  • Next steps: ZDA members will use this forum to connect with the broader Zcash community and share their thoughts on projects and collaborations for 2020. The next ZDA meeting will take place in Q3 2020.
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is it the intention that ZDA members will be applying for major grants?

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Hiyo - I think @nathan-at-least can add more color here but in general, the intention of the ZDA is to bring more developer teams together to work on Zcash. It is separate from Major Grants or MGRC but of course ZDA members can apply to funds like any other entity once MGRC determines the application guidelines. Diversifying Zcash stakeholders and broadening developer ecosystem are two top priorities for ECC.

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That’s correct Elena. No direct correlation between ZDA and MG but I’d expect some ZDA members might be interested in applying for funds under MG.

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That’s correct.

Another thing to consider is timing: this first iteration of ZDA is focused on what we can accomplish in 2020 (~6 months) whereas the MGRC won’t be receiving funds until end of 2020. I don’t know what kind of turnaround time MGRC might have between member selection and grant assignments, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the first funds didn’t flow to projects until 2021.

Meanwhile, by the time MGRC grant reviews begin, I hope to see a plethora of very high quality teams with demonstrated execution. ZDA is one place that can cultivate this, yet there are other good project pools to pull from.

Let me know if that’s clear for you or you have any follow up questions, @mistfpga.

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When you put it like that, it makes a lot of sense. I didn’t really think of the timelines.

With one ZFND and one ECC representative on the board, I imagine they will be able to self organise pretty well. the ZDA seems to be a good way to onboard new teams. I’m just slightly and it is only slightly concerned this might be seen as a cabal, or even worse it might end up being a cabal. You have alleviated more or less all my concerns. Thank you.

And also that Thesis might be part of both, but this is nothing against them I rate @mhluongo highly and just wanted to clear up potential conflicts of interest for his company. which you have.

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Thank you sir! Definitely still planning to actively pursue the MG for anyone else wondering. In the meantime I think ZDA is a good spot for practitioners to discuss our work and find ways to collaborate on our various projects. I’ll report back if it starts feeling cabal-ish :smile: a shadow governance structure is the last thing we need.

Not to speak for the group, but I think another opportunity here is to discuss dev tooling and experience and how to bring more dev engagement to the chain. I’ve not seen a good venue for that yet in Zcashland and think this can be big.

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