Zcash Shielded News | Vol. 12
Zcashd Deprecation Updates | 03/01/2024, Peter Van Valkenburg Steps Down, Zcash Extensible Wallet Interchange Format (ZeWIF) Meeting, Zcash Community Grants | Meeting Notes - 06/01/2025
Zcash Shielded News is a community article format based on the weekly Zcash Ecosystem Digest Newsletter.
Providing insight on current events and informing the community about important news in the Zcash ecosystem.
Check out the best Highlights below
Pacu started the year with new updates of the Zcashd Deprecation
Outreach:
Status: On track. Pacu has resumed outreach efforts (pinging and messaging ecosystem service providers such as Coinmarketcap/Coingecko).
Zebra:
ZF engineering team was out this week.
Zaino (ZingoLabs):
Status: On track.
Developers are addressing challenges and invite the community to engage by reproducing issues and documenting experiences (GitHub links provided).
Work continues on the in-memory backend, with reviews needed for librustzcash PR #1627.
“Zallet” (formerly Zcash Wallet CLI):
Status: On track, but with tight deadlines for January completion.
@nuttycom and @str4d are improving transparent Zcash APIs, making them more cohesive with shielded APIs for better usability and structure.
Wallet Export Format (ZeWiF):
Status: On track.
Grant approved; Blockchain Commons has resumed work after the holiday break.
Ongoing activities include a wallet.dat survey (led by Dorian from Zingo Labs) and a mid-January call organized by @BC-Shannon for community input.
Closing Note:
Encouragement for Zcash summer projects in the Southern Hemisphere.
A few days ago, Peter Van Valkenburgh announced his resignation from the Zcash Foundation Board of Directors, effective January 1, 2025, as he assumes the role of Executive Director at Coin Center. To avoid conflicts of interest, he is stepping down from all cryptocurrency-related positions.
Peter reflects on his eight years with the Foundation, highlighting its mission to build public digital infrastructure, not just educate about it. He recounts early challenges, including concerns over IRS approval for tax-exempt status, which was eventually granted.
Key achievements include:
Building Zebra, a full re-implementation of the Zcash client in Rust to ensure decentralization and long-term infrastructure integrity.
Developing privacy tools like Frost.
Attracting top talent to work on public goods rather than for-profit platforms.
He defends prioritizing robust infrastructure over short-term gains like marketing or price boosts. Peter expresses pride in the Foundation’s accomplishments and gratitude to colleagues, emphasizing his ongoing commitment to privacy and open-source development through Coin Center.
His parting message: privacy is essential, and the tools that enable it must remain accessible.
Blockchain Commons and Zingo Labs have received a grant to develop a Zcash Extensible Wallet Interchange Format (ZeWiF), libraries for data transfer, and the ZExCavator tool for extracting and exporting data from legacy wallets.
Current Progress
January Focus: Surveying and reporting on the data stored in existing wallets to ensure the interchange format accommodates all widely used information.
February Focus: Designing the new interchange format based on the survey findings.
Community Input Requested
The team seeks input on:
Key wallet data to include in the interchange format.
Features or considerations that might otherwise be overlooked.
Meeting Details
Theme: Zcash Wallet Developers Meeting
When: Friday, January 24th, 10am–12pm PT (1pm ET, 7pm CET)
Where: Zoom or Zcash Global Server
By this meeting, surveys of wallets (e.g., Zcashd, Zecwallet, Zashi, eZcash, Zingo!) should be completed. Feedback will help finalize the report on wallet contents, scheduled for January 29th, which will guide the interchange format design.
Community members are encouraged to attend or share feedback via comments.
On Tuesday we got the most recent updates from the ZCG comittee about the proposals. Check it out!
Attendance 👥
ZecHub 2025: An Education Hub For Zcash
This is our proposal. The ZecHub 2025 proposal seeks funding to expand its educational initiatives. They’re focusing on increased adoption and engagement with Squirrel, Dismad and now Vito as core contributors. ZecHub play to deliver high quality, educational content including tutorials, webinars and podcasts, as well as create developer resources and organize events, like hackathons.
The funding will support the expansion of the Global Ambassador program and to continue the ZecHub bounty program to incentivize community contributions the total request is $247,438 and the goal is to establish the club as the key educational hub for Zcash.
ZCG Committee Comments:
Brian: Very much approve this grant. ZecHub is one of the standard setting community organizations in the Zcash ecosystem and I have no issues with funding them.
GGuy: Also excited to continue funding them and to see how they expand their reach over the coming year.
Zerodartz: Yes, I also approve because we haven’t seen them yet do it full-time and it will be cool to see what they can achieve with more time invested.More expansion, etc.
Artkor: I support this grant.
Jason: I support this grant as well. I’ve been super impressed with the growth of ZecHub over the past couple years. I’m really really happy to see Vito involved as well, he’s somebody that I’ve interacted with a lot over the past year or two and I think he’s a great fit for the team. I think he’ll help them as a community liaison and with partnerships. So I’m excited to see what they do in 2025.
Unanimous approval for this grant.
Zcash Brazil 2025
Zcash Brazil 2025 proposal seeks funding of $206,794 to expand the presence and adoption of Zcash in Brazil. They’re focusing on education community engagement and the promotion of Zcash as a privacy preserving technology. The team plans to host workshops, develop educational content, and increase adoption among local businesses.
Funding will also support the creation of marketing materials, community support, and events to raise awareness of Zcash in Brazil. Their overall goal is to drive Zcash growth through collaboration with other Zcash entities and engagement with the local community. ZCG members were asked for their input and vote.
Brian: I’ll approve this grant. I think Zcash Brazil does a lot to organize the community internally but also within their region and I would like to see them continue those efforts.
GGuy: There are a lot of benefits to this program. So, I approve it as well.
Zerodartz: Brazil team has done a lot of cool stuff for their local community and also the Global Zcash Discord and community events.They’re very active in managing the community and do it pretty effectively. I’d like to see them do more in 2025, so I approve it.
Artkor: I agree with what’s been said. I approve of this grant
Jason: I strongly supports the Zcash Brazil Grant and praises Michael’s leadership and the team's outstanding performance over the past three years, setting a high standard for community groups. They highlight three reasons for approving the grant amount:
Past Flexibility: The team accepted significantly reduced funding last year during a low ZEC price and still delivered value.
Full-Time Commitment: The team plans to work full-time in 2025, which promises greater impact.
Market Opportunity: With a potential crypto bull market, this is a critical time to promote Zcash, attract new community members, and bring in developers.
The speaker believes this grant is essential to advancing Zcash's growth and visibility.
Unanimous approval for this grant.Zcash Global en Espanol 2025
The proposal requests $72,000 to expand Zcash's presence in Spanish-speaking regions of Latin America and Spain in 2025. Key initiatives include:
Digital Education: Producing tutorials, translating materials, and managing online platforms.
Community Engagement: Launching the Zcash Club to build community and drive adoption, along with hosting events to connect with Spanish-speaking audiences.
Business Outreach: Promoting Zcash's privacy features and onboarding new businesses to accept it as payment.
The team plans to leverage social media and community-driven content to increase awareness and adoption. ZCG members have been asked to provide feedback and vote on the proposal.
Brian: ‘‘I approve.’’
GGuy: ‘‘I approve, they’ve provided a lot of value.’’
Artkor: ‘‘They’re proven, I approve.’’
Zerodartz: ‘‘They have done a lot of great stuff in the last year so I approve. Let them keep the momentum going.’’
Jason: ‘‘I’m very impressed with this community and I approve as well.’’
Unanimous approval for this grant.ZK AV Club Community Support
The proposal requests $60,000 to launch the ZK AV Club Foundry, an educational livestream series focused on promoting Zcash and privacy technologies within Web3 and Dweb communities. Key features include:
Bi-Weekly Sessions: Live, interactive content and workshops to engage creators and foster collaboration.
Practical Integration: Demonstrating Zcash’s utility through contests and practical use cases.
Visibility and Trust: Building awareness of Zcash while addressing skepticism about cryptocurrencies.
The initiative aims to boost Zcash adoption by showcasing its relevance and utility to Web3 creators. This is the proposer’s first request for a ZCG grant, having previously received support from the Zcash Foundation.
Brian: ‘‘I approve, Ryan has done a lot of work to get to this point with Zcash Foundation funding and now I’m excited to fund this project via ZCG.’’
GGuy: ‘‘I think this project nails exactly what we should be investing in right now so I approve.’’
Artkor: ‘‘I approve.’’
Zerodartz: ‘‘Ryan has done a lot of great video work and now he’s teaming up with a few active community members. He really deserves this funding to go wider with the project by also collaborating with other decentralization and privacy focused communities. I approve.’’
Jason: ‘‘I approve as well. I’ve never worked with Ryan individually, but I know a lot of people who have and everybody that has worked with him speaks super highly of him. So I think he deserves it and I think he’ll do a great job. The other point I wanted to make in addition to the momentum created by all of these approvals is that the collaboration between these groups is incredible. I’m really looking forward to what comes out of these community grants in 2025.’’
Unanimous approval for this grant.Zcash Global Turkish 2025
Too early to vote. Initial impressions of this grant are favourable.
ZSAs in NU7
Too early to vote. Initial impressions of this grant are favourable.
Brainstorm Session Follow-Ups
Least Authority Invoice
ZCG approved the latest LAE invoice.
The committee explained to the new members how the contract works.
Ledger Update
To be discussed at the next Brainstorm session.
Community/Marketing Grants
ZCG to reach out to marketing experts within the Zcash community to join future brainstorming sessions to discuss community to discuss marketing grants, needs, etc.
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