Yeah, they want to be paid like CEO without having the duties of CEOs. This is soooo annoying,
Is there a specific question you’d like me to address?
I think it’s good for the community to (independently) discuss the challenges that Zcash faces, and come up with ideas and solutions. I don’t think it’s necessary for me to participate in every discussion, and I think it could be somewhat counter-productive, as I might (inadvertently) skew the conversation in a direction that means we don’t get the full benefit of the diversity of thought and ideas that the community can come up with.
For the record, I agree with the statement “Zcash is stale”. I believe Zcash needs more that just the ability to send private payments if it’s to attract users from the likes of Bitcoin and Ethereum.
That’s why I’ve been a long-time supporter of getting ZSAs rolled out ASAP (and rolling out atomic swaps functionality as soon as possible afterwards).
That’s also why I’m a major proponent of adding programmability to Zcash. FYI, earlier this year, ZF gave a grant to @therealyingtong and @LeCryptoMath to research what different paths exist to adding privacy-preserving programmability to Zcash. I recommend watching their Zcon4 presentation.
ZSAs will be the first significant enhancement to Zcash’s core functionality since the deployment of Sapling made it possible to use Zcash on mobile devices. Adding the ability to atomically swap those assets on-chain will turn Zcash into a settlement layer for DEXs. The next ingredient will be to make it easier to bridge assets from other chains onto Zcash, and moving to a consensus protocol that enables finality is an important factor there.
All of this requires a solid technical/infrastructural foundation, which is why we’re building Zebra.
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I wasn’t expecting you to address any particular issue (to be fair the zcon4 drama is whatever to me). I just want to hear something from one of the leaders. I think it’s more the visibility aspect than anything.
As for ZSAs, I’ve long thought they are exciting, however the base case for the product (private cash storage) is lacking. That’s why, despite these new shiny ZSAs, I don’t think it’s quite the silver bullet everyone anticipates.
Additionally the weird dynamic of who actually is in charge of Zcash remains a mystery with red tape galore. If we are to be “independent” as you claim, then that needs to change dramatically.
Thanks for your comment.
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IMO, the true test for zcash (or any cryptocurrency in general) is its survival independently from any organization. Unfortunately, we are not there yet as a lot of key components are under control of the ECC or the ZF. Ex: website, libraries and protocol.
I hope one day someone can design a feature like ZSA without having to write ZIPs and change the protocol.
Bitcoin Ordinals, Ethereum NFT, DEX were all created as third-party apps.
None of this can be done in zcash. That is the main weakness of the system because regardless of how smart and dedicated a developer is, he/she needs to get through the “door”.
devfund or not, you need a way to incentivize developers/builders.
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As an ex-physicist sold to the management of big engineering and data science projects I would like to point out the accuracy of the description of @skyl. The stadium is sometimes a death trap.
The core libraries and the math that run Zcash are probably formidable but the current protocol and wallets are unable to:
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handle 100K z2z tr/day;
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safely allow to high net individuals to store their coins on a shielded pool and interact with it using an hardware wallet in a simple and reliable way;
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attract dozens of new young skilled devs;
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offer something unique.
We are not dreaming anymore. Soon we might be lagging behind the pack. What are we going to do when the core cryptographers will start leaving? A strong signal has to come ASAP.
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Oh, how I categorically disagree with you. Unfortunately, you don’t know these people well. I’m so sorry about it.
This one I agree with 100%.
I’m sorry, too, because I’m not getting a slice of the dev fund.
Must be nice…
I would like to see a leader like Balaji, who could help pump it to his audience.
To keep the analogy theme.
Imagine an airline company that have this pretty airplane. No matter if it’s economic of first class all seats in this plane give massages to the clients. Every single seat have a next gen video game console and a 32" LCD display. The plane always have pop and rock concerts, magic presentations, you got the idea … It’s an awesome plane!
But there’s a catch: this plane can barely fly and the flights are always delayed.
All this airplane features are worthless if the plane can’t fly.
In this case ZEC would be the plane.
ZSAs, programability, time travel and whatnot are all fine and dandy, but as the main purpose of the plane is to safely fly from point A to point B, the main focus of ZEC should be syncing a wallet and sending transactions reliably. The rest are just extras.
I think i got carried away, sorry 
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Sort of like linux worked just fine in the early days. If you haven’t done a long tortuous rescan with ywallet then you either werent using Zcash that much or maybe you have really great hardware and internet and/or got lucky.
Not good enough for substantial marketing expenditure.
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Though if you want to continue with the metaphor, taking a plane will subject you to all kinds of security screening and monitoring.
Fast but no privacy.
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It would be great if people understood products and customers. People pay a premium for speed.
- stripe charges 1% for instant access to funds. yes people voluntarily pay it.
- payday lenders. people pay astronomical fees for instant access to money from their paychecks. A lot
more than 1%. - retailers pay 1% to amp protocol for instant clearing of crypto.
- visa/mastercard/amex get 2-3% for instant access to money.
how much are people willing to pay for privacy? $0.
so it’s truly mind boggling how people claim privacy is worth so much yet no one wants to pay for it. if zec holders were not subsidizing privacy via block rewards, would it exist if the actual people using it for its intended use were asked to pay for it ?
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It is even more confusing when the same coin has both.
How do you tell people that sometimes sync is instantaneous but it could also take hours? For the same coin, no less.
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I’m no offense again. ) Yes it is nice of course, but I’m calm. I became an ambassador 16 months ago and before that I already had the only fully dedicated site about zcash in the ru-zone around 2 years. I had already had total personal expenses of over 7000 dollars to promote my accounts by this point. I supported the creation of the funds from 2020 (there are posts about it on the forum) before I became an ambassador. During my time as an ambassador, but also before, I did not sell any coins, but instead used them as collateral for margin purchases, which I regret because it deprived me of sleep at certain times. Anyway thanks for pointing this out and giving me the opportunity to speak out.
I believed and continue to believe in Zcash not because of developer funds. And even if there are no funds, I will stay here anyway. And I will stay at ZEC at any price for a dollar. Yes, it is for a dollar, because (as I pointed out in 2017 and my opinion has not changed) changing ZEC back to dollars is the same as today starting to change dollars for seashells at a more favorable rate than thousands of years ago.
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Can you give me a ballpark estimate for when it was built? What month and year was it completed?
I’ve seen at least 50 such cases. Lets imagine these 50 people, instead of leaving angry, actually loved what they experienced and the ecosystem doubled month over month.
50, 100, 200, 400, 800…
$$50 * 2^24 > 800,000,000$$
Unsuprisingly, starting with 50 and doubling every month for 2 years is over 800 million. Do you think the above user is likely to tell a friend?
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What are you talking about ? I’m the one complaining about the sync problem …. Do you believe I am going to love the experience of feeling extremely anxious about my funds ??? I do not get you point, please explain .
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There is a negative feedback loop where
- people are told zec is a currency for day to day transactions. The developers truly believe this! so they build and advertise as such.
2 The non tech people quickly realize they can lose money. they don’t lie to themselves because they have just realize a loss on something that was not supposed to lose money. to most people, it’s not a currency they can use to accept wages or accept as payment for goods and services if you can risk not paying your rent or not being able to replenish their inventory. if they do accept zec they must quickly convert to fiat. it’s a real pain and risk. you probably lose more in slippage and actual zec declined than it’s worth. normally this would be the signal to developers we might not be on the right path. but block rewards obfuscates the signal that transactions and transaction fees would provide.
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the development community and grant recipients don’t care. they all through these message boards send a positive signal that things are great. it’s the rest of the world that doesn’t get it. they believe all they have to do it’s convince you it’s money. But the money in your pocket after going though the hassle is less than if you just accepted fiat. developers and marketing people push on and tell themselves and everyone else it’s money because they need the grants. so everyone is scared to yell out “the king has no clothes”.
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so as long as block rewards are funding and no one listens to the customers. this negative loop will continue until the technology is applied to fiat. or the mission of being a currency for day to day transactions must change or we just run out of money and run zec into the ground.
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people don’t like volitilty in their currency. it’s that simple. fortunately there is a path to saving zec, we just need to honestly assess if zec is capable of being a currency for day to day transactions as i believe it’s not nor never will be because of the intrinsic vol. once that is realized or proven to be true, then a redistribution of block rewards needs to be implemented to align with the vision for privacy based currency for day to day transactions.
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On a more practical note, I am a bit surprised that no one has experience with Unstoppable and knows how to recover the seed phrase. It is a recommended wallet on the official zcash website and one of the few shielded wallets out there. I think it uses the ECC SDK internally. @pacu, is it correct?
Also, it’s a well-established product. Shouldn’t it have better user support?
PS: IMO, a recovery tool could be a good idea for a minor grant…
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You are definitively not the only user complaining about the sync. I have helped at least a dozen people but there is only so much I can do.
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