A Zingo Release Announcement
Greetings Zcashers!
Today a new version of Zingo is available in the iOS and Google Play Stores. If you’re eager to dig into the details, you’re in luck! They’re included at the end of this post. If you’re curious about the bustling activity in the bazaar where Zingoistas can be found trading, swapping, learning, and exploring in the unique consensual Zcash economy, then just keep reading!
First off, a note on terminology I think a “Zingoista” is a person who has decided to call themselves that. That’s really the point, that people can be and become, who they aspire to be, who they claim to be. In an economy that respects that kind of self-sovereign choice, the choice to identify in the way that is authentic to the self, participants are empowered to offer their best. That’s what I want to help build, a culture that permits each person to define their own best Self.
So maybe I am the only Zingoista in the bazaar, that’d be fine.. after all the thing that makes a marketplace beautiful and dynamic is not its uniformity, but its diversity!
This is the vision that’s motivating Zingo Labs, a vibrant open marketplace where anyone can offer their best ideas, and everyone can appreciate them.
Entering the Marketplace
At Zingo Labs we’re contributing to facets of that marketplace at multiple levels. All of our contributions are intended to open that market to more new contributors.
Here’s the list of our projects:
For Rustaceans: Z3, Core Infrastructure Written In Rust
This project is migrating the remaining parts of the Zcash system away from the (now obsolete C++) Bitcoin fork, to a modern programming paradigm.
There are many benefits to this!
Possibly the most important one is that it will offer a complete Rust stack, with its strong security and correctness guarantees, to all of the diverse innovators across the economy.
Whether you’re more excited about the possibilities opened up by:
- the new Consensus algorithm
- more scaleable architectures
- liberated payments
- ZSAs
- User-Owned messages
- state of the art network privacy with Nym
- or anything else that changes the protocol
the Z3 upgrade is going to make those features easier and safer to implement. That’s why Z3 is our top priority, and will be until it’s complete. It is the thing that we all want, because it will make all subsequent projects much more achievable. And make no mistake all of those features will be completed.
All of our Rust developers are contributing to some aspect of Z3, with more than 75% of our Rust developer time exclusively dedicated to it. Here’s how:
ZeWIF:
We’re working with Blockchain Commons (BC) to define and implement a wallet interchange format. Once this specification and toolchain is in place, applications can leverage them to ingest and produce the newly standardized “Zcash extensible Wallet Interchange Format (ZeWIF)” files. Work on this is happening in the zmigrate repo. This will open the possibility of interoperating applications perhaps each specialized to its own niche. Critically this collaboration brings in fresh world-class expertise to the Zcash community. It’s a real privilege to work with the Blockchain Commons.
As a Proof Of Concept application we’ll offer the ZExCavator, a tool started by James Katz with the Zcash Brasil Community, that has the single purpose of recovering funds from wallets that have been offline for multiple years. By accounting for the nuances of early wallets, and optimizing sync algorithms accordingly we’ll be able to recover Zcash that has been inaccessible to its owners. This is where we have allocated some Rust development time to non-Z3 work. We think the community will agree that bringing our earliest Zodlers along to the Z3 era is worth the effort.
Zaino, “Z In The Middle” in Z3:
In close collaboration with ZF, Shielded Labs (SL), and ECC engineering, Zingo Labs is developing the “Zaino”.
Zaino is the indexing service for the Zcash blockchain—developed in Rust for superior performance and security. Zaino delivers data to every non-finalizer node (e.g. lightwallets and block explorers) in the economy. By cleanly separating indexing responsibilities from other core functionality, Zaino decentralizes the Zcash network, evolving it from a dual-party (ZF-ECC) structure into a more robust community with more responsible stake holders. This strategic architectural shift not only enhances network stability but also paves the way for innovative consensus mechanisms and for further decentralization like the emerging collaborations with Shielded Labs (SL).
At the heart of Zaino are two key components: the Zaino Indexer Server and the Zaino Indexer Library:
- The Indexer Server provides a high-performance, secure engine that continuously indexes both finalized and non-finalized blockchain data, ensuring real-time access for critical applications.
- Complementing this, The Indexer Library offers a modular, developer-friendly toolset for seemless integration, enabling developers to build robust applications with ease. Together, they deliver a unified and streamlined interface to fully harness the potential of the Zcash ecosystem.
Chasqui: Zcash Driven Messaging (ZDM), Where it Matters
The Net is dominated by attempts at social communication.
To understand how dominant this activity is just think about how often you try to communicate socially over the Net. Those attempts take up the vast majority of your attention online, and that’s an increasing fraction of all you have.
Social communication is what people want, but that’s not what dominates The Net. It’s not what we’re getting. We want to meet each other, to connect.
This most authentic of human desires, to know one another, is being manipulated and censored.
The sacred space between us is being violated.
Zcash Driven Messaging offers a solution, it is the “Hot Gates” Zcash, where it matters.
It offers control of our own messages.. our connections, by paying in the only way that keeps those messages from being the currency, privately.
Chasqui is the Zingo Labs prototype chat application, we’re using to explore how ZDM will work.
It’s a way to use the experimental version of Zingo, that’s “Signal-Like”. We’re testing it internally, now.
When we offer this path to real connection, we’re aligning with the vision of earlier Cypherpunks.
“The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.”
Humanity, Everyone, is being censored, Zingoistas, Anyone, are routing around it.
Now, join us as we explore what’s new in our most recent update:
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Optimized Navigation: The look and feel of the buttons and the way to go backwards have been improved, making moving around the app more intuitive.
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Redesigned Receive Screen: Now, shielded addresses are displayed in a single tab. If you need your address transparent, simply switch to the Transparent tab.
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More Space for your Messages: The unified reply-to address is now just orchard. What does this mean? You will have more characters available to type your memos.
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Clean and Sorted History: If you want to hide the small transactions and focus on the most relevant ones, you can now do so by tapping the filters in the History tab.
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Quick access to Settings: New access to Settings by tapping on the gear at the top of the wallet.
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React Native update: Upgraded to the latest version of RN and prepared for better performance.
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Improved Synchronization Statuses: Now you will be able to better track the synchronization by visualizing the different statuses at the top of the wallet.
For Android:
New device acquisitions
New user acquisitions
Analytics Update:
Unique Installs: 4.90k
Total Downloads: 5.20k
PlayStore Rating: 4.457*
For iOS:
Total Downloads
Conversion Rate
Sessions
Analytics Update:
Unique Installs: 3.07k
Total Downloads: 3.77k
AppStore Rating: 4.3*
Credits:
The Chasqui Team, compiles and refines statistics.
The Zaino and ZeWIF teams, proof-reading and corrections.
