As you might have heard, Zcash User Research & Engagement (ZURE) effort began earlier this month. In a nutshell, its purpose is to study and drive ZEC usage, and it cannot succeed without your support. This thread is where I’ll share relevant updates, thoughts, ideas, etc., and I invite everyone to do the same.
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Update
Round 1 interviews continue
- Round 1 began at ECC in the spring of 2023 and grew into the independent project, ZURE.
- Purpose: introductions, sentiment gathering, pattern exploration.
- The interviews resumed earlier this month and are underway. If you haven’t done so already, please grab a 30-minute spot on my calendar to share your thoughts on ZEC user experience. Your input is greatly appreciated.
Round 2 invitations
- Purpose: focus on usage. Round 2 will explore Zcash ecosystem tools available to ZEC users and basic transactions (buy, store, send, receive).
- If you’ve participated in Round 1, please keep an eye on your inbox over the next week. I’m starting to send out personal invitations today.
Cheers.
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Hey everyone,
A quick ZURE update:
USER RESEARCH
(2nd Milestone: 175+ hours)
• Online user interviews completed: 27 (66 total)
• S1 survey and analysis: 245 responses
• Public ZURE Report, 02/2024 is available. A more detailed developer report is available upon request. If you’re working on a Zcash project of any kind and want to learn more about Zcash users, let’s talk.
Currently, I am obsessing with maximizing the security of the process for collecting and storing user feedback. If you have recommendations for user research and data analysis tools that keep data private (scheduling, video conferencing, survey collection/analysis, data storage, etc.) please comment or DM me (X, TG: peacemongerZ).
DEVELOPER COMMS
One of ZURE’s goals is to give developers actionable user feedback. This cannot be done without ongoing communication between ZURE and developers. My presentation/participation at Zeboot kicked off that conversation. I share some of the highlights from Zeboot on my call with Free2Z.
Since Zeboot, I’ve been in touch with some of the builders, relaying user feedback, sharing data, and planning the next wave of surveys and interviews. (It was great to reconnect with everyone at ETHDenver!) One of the highlights is ZURE’s collaboration with ECC’s @andrea and the work she’s doing on Zashi and beyond.
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
ZURE Huddle on Telegram
ZURE now has a closed TG channel for user interview participants that want to collaborate with other action-minded Zcashers.
Purpose: coordination of grassroots efforts to increase adoption of Zcash payments
Goals: exchange of unconventional ideas and solutions, collaboration, support for Zcash projects, product feedback, user-focused updates
Rules: 1) If an idea doesn’t resonate with you, support it by getting out of its way. 2) Be fun.
As Zcash believers, we can do more than sit and wait for others to build the elusive perfect UX that will one day win over the masses. Adoption is not something that will happen somewhere out there on its own. We are the adoption.
So, daydreaming about the technological developments that can be possible in the future is not the purpose of this TG group. Instead of focusing on what others can build for us someday, we will try to answer the million ZEC question, “what can we do today?” What can we do with what we have to support the builders, increase awareness, and inspire engagement?
To join: If you’ve already done an online user research interview with me, DM me on TG (peacemongerZ). If not, please use this link to schedule your first user interview.
ZURE Happy Hour
Last Friday, ZURE hosted its second online happy hour for ZURE Huddle members. We discussed standout Zcash use cases, community-driven campaign ideas, ZAC membership, ideas for an online Community Zeboot (yep, that’s happening), and more.
Right now, the happy hour is by far my favorite thing about ZURE. Just a bunch of cool Zcash people talking about cool Zcash things. Lots of great ideas. It’s coming together. Already looking forward to the next one.
ZURE + ZAC
ZURE is working with ECC’s @paulbrigner to extend ZAC (Zcash Ad Hoc Caucus) invitations to verified community members; specifically, to ZURE participants.
Every ZURE participant contributes their time, feedback, and ideas to Zcash. They show up for this cause that we all care about. I am stoked to be part of the effort to include them in the decision-making process!
Cheers,
Tatyana
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Intuitively, it feels off. I think any survey you are able to execute is heavily biased by the sample—but I’m not here to stress that out.
I’ve seen the growth of 3 successful cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin (admittedly not the early early), Ethereum (completely) and Solana (completely and live).
Anyone who thinks price didn’t play the most critical role is fooling themselves into an ideal world. Price is a schelling point for the community, providing all the right things you would want within it:
- Early adopters are rewarded and invest in infrastructure
- Community is generally more welcoming and happier (sorry, it’s true)
- Outsiders start to hear, and curiosity spikes if you keep appearing to them.
You can look at their cheaper alternatives if you disagree.
The first step for a person to use Zcash is for them to buy. And as we know, any monetary purchase from an individual takes a mental toll. You could have the best UX in the world in the wallet. If every time I open it, I realise I can buy fewer things with it, I’m not coming back. This is not greedy; it’s human psychology.
I’m not writing this to defend a pump-n-dump scheme or rain in anyone’s parade. I’m writing to make sure people understand this important factor and propose that the answers to the question “how to create price momentum” might just, incidentally, solve the things you would want to.
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Are you suggesting folks can’t earn or mine it?
Imaging thinking price isn’t manipulated. 
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That’s exactly what I’m suggesting. The fact you seem surprising by this is a bit astonish for me.
99% of people that would interact with Zcash, were it be successful, will have to buy it. The same what it was/is with Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana and others. If you are taking the opposite instance I think you are the one that needs to expand on it.
And “earn” is just buying with your time.
I can’t address this because it’s unrelated to the my post, the original post or even the quote you replied to. So I will just expand on my original comment of the quote: Regardless of the reason of why the price is declining, no one is going to be happy with a product that shows the person losing money every week. UX follows price, not the other way around.
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I feel there’s something circular about this. Sure, adoption is incentivized by rising price, but price increase is also pretty directly a result of adoption. They’re tightly coupled.
So saying if we want to increase adoption, we need to drive up the price sounds to me like saying if we want to increase adoption, we need to drive up adoption.
Yes, there’s a positive feedback loop we can hope for, but it has to be bootstrapped by something. I agree that thing isn’t UX by itself.
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I dont think it’s that deep. If an asset continually loses value, people lose faith.
In theory, adoption drives price.
In practice, price drives adoption.
ZEC’s purpose is confusing and non-unified. It should be a SoV first (despite historical price performance). Add ZSAs and expose the defi ecosystem to true private assets.
This community tends to be overly academic (idealistic) and lacks direction and execution. Looking forward to see if @joshs is the man to turn things around.
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we are unfortunately in a negative feedback loop. people getting grants are being paid by block rewards. they then support voting that results in more
money for their projects and the vision that allocates
money to these projects…so we get many wallets, media, marketing, and a promise that we will some day get more users if we just keep spending block rewards for funding this vision / edge use cases. it’s what i call the zec is fiat for day to day transactions vision.
a positive feedback loop looks more like the ethereum ecosystem. it’s based on transactions and getting money directly from customers to the self funded developers who create products people use. it’s really impossible to compete with a well functioning self sustaining ecosystem like this.
we can’t drive up adoption by selling tickets to a rock concert and then having a ballet perform. there is a fundamental mismatch between what we tell people (buy zec to buy coffee) what they get (buy zec and it goes down in in price and i can’t afford coffee) in my opinion.
absolutely. but we are fighting the negative feedback
loop
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That’s just the same feedback loop in reverse.
All I’m saying is that there have to be factors outside of that loop to reverse direction. Unless you’re suggesting some kind of deceptive action between buyers, you can’t just “raise the price”. All you can do is make enough people want to buy it for a reason so that the price naturally goes up.
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My first interaction with this indusry, BTC was given away for free. Maybe 5 minutes of my time. Your claim that you have to buy it is simply false.
Hmm, are you sure?
plus
=
Related.
You think if folks buy a risk asset it has zero psychology involved?
Perhaps price isn’t the only reason someone obtains a risk asset? I mean, this is a privacy coin? I understand your point, but the way you generalize it as the only truth is wrong.
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This is where it starts to sound schizophrenic. You understand its a risk asset. And then you want to go tell people its a currency for day to day spending, which is supposed to be virtually or effectively risk free (over the short run). People are fleeing from risk assets and into risk free assets when it comes to fiat currencies. The entire point of this (when it comes to day to day spending) is to create a risk free asset so people dont have to risk their labor on getting paid in a currency that depreciates because of negligent governmental monetary policies. Over the long-run. ZEC would work as collaral, staking, or should work like BTC as difital gold with its 21m cap. Over the short-run, a privacy based stablecoin helps give the Zcash blockchain scale to keep costs down and its users a way to transact on a day to day basis.
You also sent a video about minting a stablecoin on agoric chain. Also seems a little crazy that ECC will fund a competing blockchain that has use a case such as minting stablecoins; but it wont fund Qedit to do something similar on our own blockchain. I would expect the Qedit development on the Zcash blockchain will likely be a much better UIUX and easier to use, and the fees paid on the third party chain (agoric and others) could be kept on theZcash ecosystem. My proposal would ensure a ZEC holder does not have to jump through all the hoops you had to do on the agoric chain to mint a stablecoin and makes the Zcash ecosystem order of magnitude stronger. And ECC already has a track record of funding a similar use case by funding agoric. Lets make Zcash better by funding Qedit instead of weaker by funding other competing block chains . So when a person gets paid $100; they can be 100% confident its worth $100 at the end of a day or week, month or year. If it doesn’t do this, it wont work as a currency for day to day spending. Then, if they have excess income, they could buy ZEC to protect them over the long run (presuming we can establish trust for ZEC as a SOV). By adding this use case (and there is more than one to create stablecoins), its makes ZEC stronger and with more utility in the process.
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You are an idealist dismad but the vast majority of people want to see their investment increase in value vs fiat, the most successful use case of any crypto to this point has been speculation. Thsi is proven by the constant sell pressure by miners, and even to reward recipients hedging against the poor zec price
@ambimorph is correct that for number go up, it has got to be on the back of something… zcash as it stands exists on an island, cannot interact with defi or other blockchains. But the future to me looks good with Maya interation and the halving in the near future. To me the change to POS will be the biggest thing to incentivise people to stop selling ZEC as you will be able to earn yield of your holdings
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Unified messaging on what ZEC actually is and where it plans to go.
The simple fact that there is no consensus on this WITHIN THIS VERY TOPIC ON THE ZCASH FORUM is hugely problematic. This is the #1 most important part of any business/project/investement.
Why would anyone jump into a risk asset with stakeholders that can’t agree on the vision of the future?
Less idealism, more practicality.
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So what’s the answer? 
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You sure love calling me names, thanks for that. All I’m trying to do is highlight different use cases, I’m pretty sure I never told folks what to do. Folks can use ZEC however they like, full stop. You seem very partial to stables, good for you!
I used this to point out how I’m showcasing many different things that can done. I never said stables shouldn’t be done, just want others to realize they too have pitfalls.
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Seems clear to me the privacy sector is being “speculated” in the wrong direction. Could it be “the market” ? Sure, but I have to ask why, and who benefits from making sure almost no one wants to “invest” in it. Red tape, slow downs, folks being scared to be open with real thoughts… sad and yet telling to me.
I just want to focus on educating all use cases so more of us can start having fun, zebra like.
Appreciate your thoughts. 
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We should welcome more opinions and feedback. What we really need is more users to start communicating what they think, and not worry what the majority says. Welcome to the forums!
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You are not and “it”. The ZEC is fiat for day to day transactions vision is what i’m referring to. i’m hoping you will see that your understanding that zec is a risk asset will also help you understand zec
won’t work for this use case as well.
they can use it how they like. But this vision of zec as fiat for day to day transactions causes money to be spent on projects and marketing that is wasted and hurts Zec. so it’s not just a choice the customer makes. the people deciding on how block rewards are spent are misallocating capital and that is the problem.
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It most certainly isn’t. Zcash is more than just a risk asset. Maybe not to Casino users, focused on gains and losses, but to Product users, that value private payments, it is certainly much more than a risk asset. It would be foolish to ignore Zcash payment users or try to tell them they are wrong.
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