Zerodartz for ZCG (December 2025)

Governance ZCG Elections
1

hey, Zerodartz here. announcing my candidacy for my second ZCG election.

ive now been on ZCG committee almost a year now and ive enjoyed the time and working with other ZCG members contributing to Zcash. i was thinking if i should apply again but many engouraged me and when i thought about it longer, it makes sense cause to find similar mission im as passionate about is difficult.

my active journey in Zcash began 2021 by starting meme posting on twitter, tho i previously mined Zcash years before. ive stayed as active as possible and became obsessed about everything privacy and Zcash related in last years (thanks Zcon4 - in person events strenghten connections)

on another note - becoming a committee member from being a community member is not easy in turbulent times and its been big learning curve on how to make tough decisions and review grant proposals. i appreciate all the efforts of the teams and grantees over the years and even when we decided not to fund some projects the hardcore ones stay around and sometimes keep making Zcash better from their own time (yall are insane in good way, make sure u dont burn out). if u can build and prove a project improves Zcash in meaningful way for developers and/or users the chances to find funding grow.

Priorities for the next year for ZCG and Zcash in my view

  1. improve user experience:

    • passkeys in top wallet(s): add passkeys and/or Multifactor(MFKDF2) authentication to Zashi and other wallets to help beginners secure their funds and prevent loss due to forgotten/lost or compromised backups.

    • top-tier ux: focus on good UX/UI design in Zcash applications to ensure they are easily usable and above average. this has been key to Zashi’s success.

    • smoother network upgrades: i think @nuttycomb point of having smoother and easy upgrade path by creating right libraries for NUs would help us a ton

    • developer experience: improve documentation and onboarding for new developers to encourage more innovative apps and products.

    • hardware wallets: Ledger shall accelerate their development, Trezor is also looking into Zcash again possibly, some other hardware wallets might also find Zcash interesting now

  2. increase ZEC spendability:

    • more stores: make ZEC spendable in more online and offline stores using BTCPayServer (or ZGo or other new? tools) to improve the Zeconomy and make Zcash more viable for everyday transactions.

    • faster finality: improve usability for frequent small spendings without waiting

  3. technical innovations:

    • tachyon scaling: initiate Tachyon scaling to enhance network performance and scalability and user experience

    • coinvoting: make coinvoting easier and faster, add mobile wallet voting to boost community participation

    • zsa (shielded assets): explore shielded assets beyond ZEC to enhance privacy and security (people want to own privately more than 1 asset imo)

  4. global community engagement + collaborations

    • worldwide communities: encourage more global ambassadors and Zcashers to participate in events and educate about Zcash beyond online spaces.

    • mission-aligned communities: continue current and find new collaborations with like-minded organizations to strengthen the Zcash ecosystem and promote privacy and decentralization.

My side missions

  • member of ZecHub DAO

  • active volunteer in Zk Av Club

  • helping community moderation on Discord/TG

  • addicted making shielded txs

  • and yea I might run Zebra node(s)

  • vibecoded more visual dashboard for ZCG Grants https://zerodartz.github.io/zcg-dashboard/ - not official yet but works (if find bugs lmk)

  • i have more energy to give to Zcash and its community as for me its important to work and improve privacy for people

  • not expert in understanding all technical details but more experienced in visual work(memes/media/videos/apps) and UX that is well made with great taste and soul

  • lets strive for quality in everything we do and build

Year in review

this year improved my understanding on which proposals have more potential to actually work out and which ones are not worth the energy. ZCG team has great members and they all contributed in their own ways this year. the biggest surprise in ZCG has been @artkor who worked a lot by helping BTCPayServer become usable in reality by tmaking sure multiple involved sides are on the same page - big respect to him.

its been a rollercoaster year in privacy and for Zcash. before the summer things seemed kinda wobbly from my perspective (when you are in the kitchen you see the sweating by the master chefs a bit closer) and the funding was limiting. situation has improved (for now) and we could fund more but should still focus on projects that have the most impact and can become sustainable long term. i used Zcash much more in last year and can already see future where it would be possible to pay for everything with Zcash where i live - not quite just yet (Zashi cross-pay feature plays big role but a pure shielded ZEC should still be the end goal)

i love testing and giving feedback to multiple Zcash wallets and love seeing the improvements made through years - 2025 was been big step forward. cant name them all but biggest shoutouts:

  • mempool detection improvements

  • DEX implementations Near + Maya + cross-pay

  • shielded adoption improvements(shielded pool record size)

  • genzcash(cringe acceleration)

  • Zashi team

Zcash is closer to mass adoption reality than ever before but we still have things to improve and build. (we should experiment with promising fun projects but it should be little % of it all)

Events and community engagement

worth mentioning - Zcash supported and sponsored some good events in the privacy space. while an immediate clear ROI of those investments/spendings might not be visible there is value there when those events are carefully chosen and align with Zcash main privacy first values (Dark Prague + Web3Privacy Now Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress 2). events need also Zcashers attending them and it seems there could be need for more event attending people from the community. i personally also allocated quite some time this year to attend a few events thanks to being a ZCG member to represent ZCG and volunteered to help out Zk Av Club capturing quality conversations around crypto, privacy, and community projects for the history books. met new Zcashers and other privacy-related persons at Berlin Blockchain Week, ZECC, Dark Prague, and Web3Privacy Now Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress 2 + Devconnect + Sub0. (privacy is winning)

good luck and health to everyone working on privacy and to all of us making Zcash better. many strong candidates already this time so i encourage to read every single post.

privacy saves lives.
onward

27 Likes
2

Thank you, Zerodartz! I’m very grateful to the community for this year’s opportunity to be involved in some aspects of Zcash’s inner workings. It has been very interesting and useful for me. I have understood and learned a lot.

I wish you success and will definitely support you!

11 Likes
3

@Zerodartz

Thank you for participating with ZCG.

ZCG members are accountable and are guided by zip 1015. The last year you have participated on ZCG is a unique year for the Dev Fund. No where did you conduct public conversations or hold FPF’s contract with ZCG, and its terms clearly stated in zip 1015 to any level of accountability.

Zcash requires higher standards of Accountability.

I do not support your election to ZCG.

1 Like
4

He’s been in attendence in every community call and makes himself available every Friday for questions and feedback.

11 Likes
5

I have some questions:

What are your views on Crosslink? Do you have a preference for pure PoS or hybrid PoS/PoW (Crosslink).

Assume for a moment Zcash goes for pure PoS and we therefore have to choose a new consensus algorithm. Do you think it is more important to support a high validator count so that home staking is possible, or is it more important to get automatic interoperability with other blockchains by choosing a standardized algorithm?

What are your thoughts on ZSAs? More broadly what are your thoughts on making Zcash programmable by adding private smart contracts?

What are your views on layer 2s? Do you think Zcash needs a layer 2?

Do you want to keep or get rid of the transparent pool?

Do you think it is more important to focus on making ZEC a store-of-value or a means of payment?

1 Like
6

This simply isn’t true, what is your evidence?

4 Likes
7

@zerodartz has been one of the most active, consistent, and positive (probably the most positive) members of this community. He participates in everything. That’s part of why we voted him in to begin with (he beat you by 57 votes). Your post make no sense.

5 Likes
8

Hi @dismad,

FPF is a service provider to the Zcash Community Grants.
Its contract has been a non-compete contract (meaning no competition).

ZCG is guided by zip 1015.

ZCG SHALL strive to define target metrics and key performance indicators, and the ZCG Committee SHOULD utilize these in its funding decisions.

Furthering Decentralization

FPF SHALL conduct periodic reviews of the organizational structure, performance, and effectiveness of the ZCG program and committee, taking into consideration the input and recommendations of the ZCG Committee.

ZCG SHOULD support well-specified work proposed by the grantee, at reasonable market-rate costs. They can be of any duration or ongoing without a duration limit. Grants of indefinite duration SHOULD be reviewed periodically (on a schedule that the Zcash Community Grants Committee considers appropriate for the value and complexity of the grant) for continuation of funding.

In ZCG minute Meetings or ZCG Updates, no discussions of defining FPF target metrics, key performance indicators, periodic reviews, performance and effectiveness, market rates for services delivered.
No open discussion in any ZCG minute meetings, no review of contract, no competition to find market-rates. No other organization which has received funds from ZCG has such low standards of accountability.

Enforcement

FPF MUST contractually commit to fulfill these obligations on behalf of ZCG

ZCG members require higher standards of Accountability.

1 Like
9

@zerodartz is a very active and accesible person, you have also gathered lots of experience,i will like to see you continue for another term. wishing you success

6 Likes
10

My observations during your term have been very positive. Your constant engagement with the community and your approach to evaluating proposals in a way that benefits the project were truly important. I believe you will continue with the same discipline and sense of responsibility.

However, I would like to ask:
In previous terms, the entire ZCG team maintained a supportive attitude toward community projects and acted professionally in communicating with local communities. If you are elected this term, will you continue this approach? Or could the price increase — and the responsibilities that will come with it — change the way you evaluate proposals in the new term?

3 Likes
11

i would love to see Zerodarts continue

3 Likes
12

What are your views on Crosslink? Do you have a preference for pure PoS or hybrid PoS/PoW (Crosslink).

ive been thinking about it a lot. while i was supportive of it before, i think now we need more time to do more reasearch and discussions in the community before rushing forward. if/wen Zcash updates to Crosslink then the hybrid would be better first as the transition has probably less risks. PoW works well for now as Zcash hashrate has seen growth to record levels and Tachyon could in next years help with scaling. i do think improving finality time is needed for Zcash in one way or another. staking is sth that is a nice bonus but i dont see it as necessary right now.

Assume for a moment Zcash goes for pure PoS and we therefore have to choose a new consensus algorithm. Do you think it is more important to support a high validator count so that home staking is possible, or is it more important to get automatic interoperability with other blockchains by choosing a standardized algorithm?

if it would go for pure PoS then algorithm that makes interoperability easier would make more sense. Near intents has shown there is demand for crosschain activity. validator count should be big and decentralized enough in that case but not every user should need to run their own node so delegating would be needed. a validator should be able to run from home and be run on a not state of the art computer. (depends a lot on the design choices tho). privacy and security should not be compromised by implementing this PoS.

What are your thoughts on ZSAs? More broadly what are your thoughts on making Zcash programmable by adding private smart contracts?

i would like to see ZSAs activate, but would also be fine if the wider community decides they are not needed right now. 1 thing i would ask everyone in that case: where would you feel safe holding your other assets other than ZEC? (digital assets onchain + offchain) for me right now there isnt a blockchain with good enough privacy and liquidity i would trust long term to hold my other assets. but ZSAs are also not only about monetary assets. think of tokens that help you to verify that you know something without revealing it. age verification in stores to buy not for kids stuff without leaking all your data would make sense and similar use cases that are there already today but leak and reveal too much information about people. (it should not be used to add verification to everything in the world).
programmability + smart contracts adds a lot of security problems as we have seen from many other chains with bugs and hacks - so its a double edged sword. i would like to see them one day, but the design would have to be bullet proof and each contract should have a provable(math) safety features in them if its possible to design them that way. a lot of research will be needed for this.

What are your views on layer 2s? Do you think Zcash needs a layer 2?

as long as most of the value moves and is stored on layer1 a layer2 can make sense for some specific use cases - but it needs to be as private and secure as possible. ofc there are some compromises with every layer2. Starkware people already are working on a proof of concept Zcash L2 so im interested to see how this experiment goes. https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/proposal-ztarknet-a-starknet-l2-for-zcash/52926 if devs, community and zodlers find it useful for new usecases and apps that are not feasible on current L1 then its worth to experiment. im open to L2s if no other way around.

Do you want to keep or get rid of the transparent pool?

for normal users and payments transparent pool makes less and less sense in 2025 unless you often send money between exchanges which dont support withdrawals and deposits with shielded addresses. some Zcash engineers have discussed that it would make chain simpler and free up time to improve shielded development. yes, transparent chain has some use cases for now but im not sure t2t transactions are needed in future when shielded adoption can replace it in most cases. but im open to change my views if there isnt a solution to some usecases that absolutely need 100% transparent payments. im happy most user facing wallets already are shielded by default and work quite well.

Do you think it is more important to focus on making ZEC a store-of-value or a means of payment?

thats a hard one. means of payment needs some kind of store of value and store of value is hard to achieve if theres no means of payment. both require each other. very little payments volume on Zcash would weaken the privacy. it has to be a fully working ecosystem with both. it aint perfect store of value yet also imo as value in last years has been very volatile over longer periods. its better to focus on means of payment atm as theres lots of work to do for merchant adoption.

2 Likes
13

thanks for the question.

In previous terms, the entire ZCG team maintained a supportive attitude toward community projects and acted professionally in communicating with local communities. If you are elected this term, will you continue this approach? Or could the price increase — and the responsibilities that will come with it — change the way you evaluate proposals in the new term?

in previous year ZCG team has been supporting many community projects. if elected this term, i would continue supporting communities with some changes how i prioritize the funding and support.

my personal view is that while most communities add some value, there are some which add way more than others. not every community group should be funded by ZCG in 2026. the funding should be more focused and strategic than before. for example funding community members mostly for online posting would not be good use of funds in 2026. instead, we should prioritize supporting individuals who already have proven track record and align well with Zcash’s mission of promoting privacy also at in-person small to big - mostly privacy events. in-person connections can grow into meaningful relationships that are often difficult to establish purely online. i know, immediate impact of it can be hard to measure, but long-term benefits of having Zcash represented at key crypto and privacy events are important.

Zcash not being represented at many events in the past was a missed opportunity. having a presence at best events is valuable and increases the visibility and builds trust. Zcash does have price volatility, and we should prioritize funding initiatives that maximize the potential impact at any price point. by supporting community members who effectively advocate for Zcash privacy mission and create meaningful connections at these events, we can improve and grow global trust of Zcash and its community.

6 Likes
14

I respect your opinion on accountability standards.

That is precisely why I support @Zerodartz: they have consistently demonstrated complete transparency in their proposals, an impeccable track record of delivery, respectful communication even under pressure, and a genuine commitment to the privacy and sustainability of Zcash, without compromising accountability.

Believing in higher standards should not lead to rejecting those who already meet and exceed them. My vote goes to those who combine technical excellence with maturity and professionalism.

Thank you for caring about the quality of the ZCG!

And @Zerodartz thank you for being a Zcasher in person and in spirit!!!

3 Likes