Hey Zcash Zeal!
This weeks meeting had a special guest @Dodger Jack Gavigan who is the new Executive Director of the Zcash Foundation. We invited Jack to speak to the group to get his perspective of the relationship of the ZOMG and the Zcash Foundation. While the ZOMG is legally a “technology advisory board” to the Foundation, ZOMG retains the rights to evaluate and approve grants independent of the Zcash Foundation.
We also were able to approve @decentralistdan ZcashZeal.org proposal for funding, and are continuing to review the renZEC proposal from Unstoppable wallet.
We also decided to bump up our meeting cadence to weekly for a few weeks to get caught up on policies and organizational documentation that ZOMG needs.
Minutes are below:
ZOMG Zoom Meeting: February 16, 2021
[Minutes taken by Danika]
Meeting minutes:
Attendance:
-
Hudson Jameson
-
ML Sudo
-
Shawn
-
Chris Burniske
-
Holmes Wilson
-
Jack Gavigan (guest)
-
Danika Delano acting as notetaker
Pre-meeting Agenda:
- Grant discussion (Zcash Zeal status. renZEC seems to have a hiccup. Elliot Blanchard looking for things to build, Shawn replied on the forums)
- New voting process, e.g. 3/5? or not?
- ML’s email (that could be discussed a different meeting)
- Jack G joins us
- Proactive
- ZEC → USD options
Notes:
Jack Gavigan Q&A
- Jack thanked the committee for inviting him to join the meeting and asked if there are questions for him.
- Hudson asked about defining the relationship between the Foundation and ZOMG. He also asked if Jack could share his response to the question they have received from grantees (that have worked with the Foundation before) who ask why they should work with ZOMG instead of the Foundation.
- Jack responded that ZOMG is legally a part of the Foundation. ZOMG defines how to set funds and the Foundation put out metrics for ZOMG to follow that are loose guidelines. From Jack’s view, as long as the projects being funded are in the ballpark of guidelines, it is fine. He continued to explain that the community deliberately decided ZOMG was going to be independent to provide diversity from the ECC and the Foundation. The members were selected from the community and ZOMG represents diversity of funding and diversity in member background. He emphasized that he is happy to be as involved as they want him to be but is hesitant to push advice on them because independence is important.
- Chris asked about the cadence of funding that he expects from ZOMG and what it implies for ZOMG’s runway. Chris admitted that he is the fiscal conservative of the committee and views the ZOMG Dev Fund as a resource to be pulled from for decades.
- Jack said Chris’s opinion is valid but there is a spectrum and has gotten the idea that the Foundation has been relatively conservative with funding in the past. Jack shared that he, personally, would like the impact (in net present value) of funds that are granted sooner as they may have a multiplicative effect vs holding on to the coins and spending them down the line. He also postulated that the people that voted for ZOMG would expect that they will spend funds soon. ML agreed that funding is a catalyst for the ecosystem. Chis said he appreciated balanced viewpoints. Jack elaborated that the community set this structure up and elected people whose judgement they trust so they should feel free to exercise collective judgement.
- Holmes asked if there was any reason why the Dev Fund would not be created again if it is deemed to be successful in 4 years and asked him to speak to its ability to sustain over time.
- Chris replied saying it depends on ZEC/USD exchange and said Placeholder has not done modeling but by reflecting on the competitive value of other coins, ZEC is vulnerable and is exposed to execution. He did not think ZEC would receive the goodwill like BTH, and it is more prone to risk due to it being more centralized. Chris suggested the ZOMG committee act as a placeholder and maybe be an independent committee with ZOMG work as their full-time jobs. Hudson added that if we don’t deploy enough funds to show enough value, there will be consequences and the community may be frustrated. Chris stated that ZEC belongs to the network and saving resources for future improved governance systems is not a bad thing. He also agreed with ML, who brought up that competition is high. Jack said there is a chance that holding on the coins will have a greater impact than spending them today and there are many factors that play into that. Chris clarified that he does not want to turn down quality, but wants to conserve resources. Chris then applauded the other members for the great deal of exemplary work they have already accomplished.
- Hudson reminded Jack of the second part of his question (why grantees should seek funds from ZOMG instead of the Foundation).
- Jack admitted that it is a good question. He referred to ZIP 1014 that is intended to support teams that will deliver real impact to the Zcash ecosystem. He elaborated that having more teams that are working on Zcash that are not reliant on ECC or the Foundation is a good goal to aim for. ZOMG, an independent and decentralized team that stands on their own is where the grants funding stream should come from. He explained that if the Foundation funds everything, they have a huge sense of control over the ecosystem and he wants to see more influence arise outside the Foundation and ECC. Hudson replied that it was a good answer and the message from the Foundation should be to go to ZOMG with your case (emphasizing that ZOMG are reasonable when assessing applications).
- Jack concluded by saying if they are nervous about giving grants to recipients who they fear may not deliver or have the impact the committee hoped, he encourages them to be ready to take risk, as risk and reward come together. He assured them that he will be standing shoulder to shoulder with them if they fund a grant that does not deliver, and there is a negative reaction on the forum.
- Everyone thanked Jack for joining.
- ML reminded him about their conversation on the possibility of having a joint meeting with ZOMG, ECC, & the Foundation monthly or once every 2 months so everyone can be on the same page. Jack said he would discuss this proposal with ECC in the next 10 days.
Weekly Calls
- The committee agreed that they should have weekly calls for the next 3 weeks. Chris stated that he cannot join the extra meetings.
Grant Discussion: Zcash Zeal
- The committee agreed that they received a positive response. Shawn told the group that ZcashZeal updated their initial proposal and implemented the 3 month roll out, as suggested. All members agreed to approve and Shawn volunteered to follow up with ZcashZeal on the forum and grant platform.
Grant Discussion: RenZec
- Hudson explained that the applicant did not respond to Holmes’s question and clarified that one would not use it for casual transactions. He then summarized that all members were overall fairly pro during the last meeting and suggested they ping them to answer their questions and provisionally approve. Shawn voiced that he is not 100% clear on how it works and would like to follow up and address it next week. ML suggested they answer now. Hudson added that the answers they could give would be speculative. Holmes said that they could flesh out their answer as part of finalizing and was supportive of approving. Chris added that they should be clear that they are approving because it is Unstoppable Wallet (that has the brand and trust) and they should conditionally approve upon answering questions. ML suggested they phase out the payments. Chris agreed and added that they could fund half now and half when completed. ML agreed and suggested applying this funding format to all grants. Shawn agreed that this funding structure works for this grant but it will be hard to ask of all applicants. Holmes volunteered to follow up with iBek, conditionally approving with 50/50 milestones and answers to their questions.
New voting process
- ML proposed a new voting structure of 3/5 for amounts under $20k, 4/5 for amounts under $100k, and 5/5 for anything more.
- Holmes added that if someone is neutral they should be able to move forward with 3 out of 5 but if someone has a strong opposition, they should stop and talk about it as the discussion solicits more awareness.
- ML suggested a 12 hour period to veto and Hudson suggested 24 hours. Holmes stated that the 24 timeline would be fine if someone missed a meeting but does not want to make a habit of making decisions on the fly. ML clarified that the veto time limit suggestion is only for urgent situations in between meetings. Chris agreed and added that the process of syncing live is the most thorough so this should be exclusively intended for urgent situations.
- All members agreed that they will institute the aforementioned voting structure with a 24 hour veto policy for urgent decisions in between meetings.
Proactively funding a security team and wallet teams
- Holmes explained that teams are not used to applying for grants, are not aware of what ZOMG wants, or the amount ZOMG is willing to fund. He reminded them that they have had 3 proposals from wallet teams and suggested they go to the 3 teams and fund them to make wallets awesome. He continued his idea that they could ask them what they need to go faster and make their wallets better. Instead of funding piecemeal security, they could set up teams that are security experts. Chris was supportive of both ideas. ML asked Holmes to write out a document stating what the problem is and what ZOMG and the community can do, adding that they could also sync up with other orgs. Shawn suggested that they have a bounty or hire someone on a retainer. Holmes agreed to organize his thoughts and thought it would be cool to post on the forum. Hudson stated that he likes to have the ZOMG brand on certain ideas the committee all approves of instead of personal posts.
ML’s Email
- ML referenced the email she sent to the members and suggested they do async work.
- Hudson & Shawn volunteered to look over the ideas and contribute.
Organization
- Hudson volunteered to make shared Google Drive so all their documents are stored in a central location.
- ML asked if they could use a platform for threads on different topics like Discord.
- After some discussion the members agreed to use Discord utilizing different channels for different topics and do a mass delete of non-official comms every 3 months.
Summary of action items:
- Discuss regular ZOMG, ECC & Foundation meetings with ECC (Jack)
- Follow up with Zcash Zeal (Shawn)
- Follow up with iBek (Holmes)
- Look over ML’s ideas (Hudson & Shawn)
- Create Google Drive (Hudson)