ZF's Impact on the Zcash ecosystem

[artkor]

Thank you for this message. The iceberg is more multifaceted underwater than we may know. Would love to see Jack’s comments.

[SexDrugsAndZcash]

its because Zcash is an internal Gov/CIA project, and they have their own plan.
their plan does not include Zcash wide adoption yet.
can’t find other reasonable explanation for their irrational behavior all those years.

[conradoplg]

@hanh

I had a frost grant ready to go but after consultation with the ZF, it was rejected because Frost was supposed to be available in the following months. That was 2 years ago. As a result, I removed Frost from ywallet. Note that this affected Zcash users but not other coins that use their own implementation of frost. Ironic when you consider that Frost was invented by a ZF engineer.

(Disclaimer: I wasn’t involved with the discussion about your grant)

FROST (the protocol) wasn’t ready. In fact it changed after that. If your grant went through we would have an implementation of a protocol that would be possibly insecure and different to the specified one and that would be incompatible with the rest of the ecosystem. I would assume you would ask for another grant to update it and that would be require ZCG spending even more.

[hanh]

Well, that was actually one other annoying thing. I opened issues on the frost code base at that time and it was summarily closed because “it was not supposed to work”.
I ended up fixing the issues myself.

You seem to think that the ZF implementation is the standard. But it came so late that there are other implementations already in use.

What app is using the ZF libs?

[skyl]

Out of curiosity, would you accept the executive director position at ZF (or bootstrap) if it was offered?

[conradoplg]

@hanh

Well, that was actually one other annoying thing. I opened issues on the frost code base at that time and it was summarily closed because “it was not supposed to work”.
I ended up fixing the issues myself.

This is the only issue I found. I think the answer was pretty clear; it was still being implemented?

You seem to think that the ZF implementation is the standard. But it came so late that there are other implementations already in use.

I was talking about the specification, not the implementation. Yes, other implementations were completed first. It wasn’t a race. We prioritized correctness, documentation, clarity, support, and not simply being the first to implement it.

The response to your grant was:

the Committee requests that Hanh wait until the FROST specification is complete, the proof for re-randomizable FROST is written, and the ZIP for re-randomizable FROST written

The specification… the proof… and the ZIP. Not the implementation.

What app is using the ZF libs?

What app is using any FROST lib? There’s Serai using modular-frost which was built for it. What else?

Pacu is currently working with Zavax bridge using the ZF FROST libs.

[conradoplg]

@jelly5649

I feel like ZF has had a chokehold on Zcash and it’s a critical point now. As mentioned elsewhere, all the people they elect to “decentralize” the decision process is deeply wrong.

I almost wish that was actually true. I completely fail to understand how the ZF has a chokehold on Zcash? Is this about the trademark, which was never enforced by ZF other than to take down scam sites? Is this about ZCAP, an advisory panel, where ZF never did anything to stop people from building something similar to it (in fact encouraged to do so) and ECC eventually created something similar? Is this about how ZF refrained for a long time from proposing what would happen with the dev fund to encourage the community to propose something first?

[hanh]

Well, you work for the ZF and you were not part of the discussion during the Frost events.

I think there is not much point in going into the details.

[conradoplg]

@jelly5649

Who has been organizing governance decisions if not either ZF directly or ZF approved people? That’s it, inertia did the rest.

Which governance decisions were single-handedly decided by ZF?

[Dodger]

@hanh

• I had a frost grant ready to go but after consultation with the ZF, it was rejected because Frost was supposed to be available in the following months. That was 2 years ago. As a result, I removed Frost from ywallet. Note that this affected Zcash users but not other coins that use their own implementation of frost. Ironic when you consider that Frost was invented by a ZF engineer.

As Conrado has pointed out, the FROST protocol wasn’t finalized at that point. However, the RFC is now published (), so hopefully the ZIP 213 will be finalized soon, once the Dev Fund decision is out of the way.

• At one point, Apple asked to have wallet apps published by a company associated with the coin. Naturally, I requested help from the ZF. Jack refused. As a result, ywallet is published by the Ycash Foundation

I seem to recall suggesting that you spoke with ECC, as they had experience of publishing mobile apps, whereas ZF did (and still does) not. Did you talk to ECC?

In general, ZF’s policy is that grants should be capable of standing on their own two feet, and not have a major dependency on ZF for delivering the grant deliverables. Otherwise, ZF risks becoming a single point of failure (which is bad for decentralization), and it’s also at odds with the stated purpose of the community grants program, which is to foster decentralization and growth of independent development teams.

FWIW, neither ZecWallet nor Nighthawk needed ZF’s intervention in order to publish their wallets.

• The same thing happened with Ledger. They requested the endorsement of an “official” entity behind zcash. Both the ECC and the ZF refused. The ZCG doesn’t have the legal structure to sign contracts. The ZF chose to support Zondax even though they failed to deliver after 2 years. Now it has been more than 3 years and it is still not available. And when it comes out, it will be inferior to the ywallet/ledger app.

Ledger didn’t merely require “endorsement”. The contract you allude to would have made ZF (or ECC) responsible for ensuring that the Ledger app worked with all Ledger devices, auditing the app (and fixing any issues identified by the audit), and maintaining the app going forward. ZF doesn’t have the resources or skillset to do all that.

[Jovan]

@Dodger I don’t ask you thoughts about price, but a lot of members in community are scared will Zec pass legal requrements for not disapearing in crypto space ( privacy allowed from goverments)… how is Zec going in that direction?
A lot of people put big money here but all are stressed fot this topic.

[hanh]

Well, the ZF doesn’t have the skillset but I do. You choose Zondax over a company that I offered to create to provide support.
And it seems that Zondax doesn’t have the skillset otherwise it would be released by now.

[hanh]

@jelly5649

I wouldn’t attack them without knowing all the details

zcash is more complex than anything they have done before. I have read their code and I know what issues they have now. Anyway, it is a small point.
I hope for the sake of the zcash community that they will sort it out soon.

[Dodger]

@Jovan

…a lot of members in community are scared will Zec pass legal requrements for not disapearing in crypto space ( privacy allowed from goverments)… how is Zec going in that direction?

I would defer to @paulbrigner on this topic. He is far better qualified and informed than I about the regulatory situation.

[zkcroc]

Why can’t zondax hire you as a consultant for a week then?

[zecbull]

@zkcroc

zondax

The zondax were afraid of being discovered that they hadn’t actually done anything.