Zcash Shielded News | Vol.13
ECC - Transparent Report Q2 2024, ECC | Summit 14-16 January, Zcashd Deprecatios Updates & ZecHub Announces Its First RFP (Request for Proposals)
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
The Electric Coin Co is committed to share the Transparency Report every quarter of the year to clarify and provide transparency about their expenses and progress during the year.
This week we were introduced to the Q2 2024 which includes good informations about the company. Check it out :)
Key takeaways:
Bootstrap received coins at a value below the ECC operating expense level for Q2 2024. During this time, Bootstrap received coins at an average of $179K a month (at the Q2 average ZEC price, $23.35, for each of the three months’ distribution dates), and Bootstrap and ECC incurred average monthly expenses of approximately $353K.
At the end of Q2 2024, Bootstrap and ECC collectively held approximately $964K in USD and approximately 100K ZEC
The Founders Reward (FR) for Zcash expired in November 2020, and a new development fund was implemented, allocating 80% of block rewards to miners and 20% to development funding. Of this, 8% went to Zcash Community Grants (ZCG), 7% to Bootstrap, and 5% to the Zcash Foundation. In November 2024, the development fund transitioned to a Hybrid Deferred Dev Fund, where 8% of block rewards now go to ZCG, and ECC and ZF no longer receive direct funding. The community will decide on future funding models during this 1-year period.
The approximate amount of total mining rewards generated each calendar month in Q2 2024 was 108,642 ZEC. At a price of $23.82 per coin (the average of the ZEC daily closing price for Q2 2024), this equated to $2,587,845. The table below shows the approximate share of mining rewards and estimated dollar value received per month for April through June 2024.
Income and holdings
In Q2 2024, Bootstrap recognized revenue from cryptocurrency at the market price on the day received, holding coins as assets on their books. They received 7,656 ZEC monthly from December 2020 through November 2024. By the end of Q2 2024, Bootstrap and ECC had around $964K in USD and 100K ZEC. In December 2024, this decreased to $936K USD and 111K ZEC.
Bootstrap also holds investments in Agoric Systems, Starkware Industries, and Bolt Labs, with some tokens sold for liquidity. Bootstrap's sole major liability is a $3.75M debt, now restructured with monthly payments until January 2031. This debt was incurred for purchasing part of LAE's ZEC share rights, and the total assets held exceed this liability.
Expenses and use of funds
In Q2 2024, Bootstrap and ECC's operating expenses averaged around $353K, with consistent departmental expense distribution from quarter to quarter. To motivate and retain employees, ECC implemented an employee retention plan, offering ZEC-based grants that vest over four years. The detailed expense breakdown by functional department for Q2 2024 includes all attributed expenses, though specific percentages are not provided in the summary.
If you wanna know more about the expenses and use of funds in areas like Research & Development, engineering, Comms, User Adoption and etc, we highly recommend to check the full report for more details. Follow the link → ECC | Transparency Report Q2 2024
ECC is started the year on fire! After their Transparent Report, we got some news from the ECC Summit which is happening in Cancun, Mexico, 14-16 January.
ECC Summit (old Zeebot) is a face-to-face event hosted by ECC for the Zcash Community and partners to gather for 3 days to brainstorming and raise new ideas of how to make Zcash better in 2025. This event usually happens twice a year, January and July.
To give the attenders more freedom without the pression of being recorded, ECC isn’t streaming the talks, however, we got some news on Twitter that got community excited.
Important guests like Brave & Maya Protocol also attended to discuss their integration with Zcash, just like important developers from the community such as Pacu, Kit from RedBridge, and of course, developers from ECC.
Stay tuned on medias and the forum to keep updated of the ECC Summit.
Every week Pacu is providing updates of the Zcashd Deprecation. Here’s some good topics:
Outreach: The team is awaiting feedback from major platforms like Coinbase and HTX.
Zebra: Marek from ZF reported progress on issues in Zebra’s Regtest environment, which will aid in Zaino development.
Zaino (ZingoLabs): The Zaino project is on track, with devs continuing work. A tutorial for running Zaino and Zebra has been released. Issues in Regtest are being addressed, and Zaino is nearing parity with lightwalletd functionality. Community contributions are encouraged.
PRs needing review: Several pull requests are awaiting review, especially around Zaino and its integration.
In-Memory Backend Wrap-up: Progress is ongoing, but some PR reviews are still pending.
“Zallet” (Zcash Wallet CLI): Development is on track, aiming for completion by the end of January.
Wallet Export Format: Progress is being made with Dorian from ZingoLabs on the survey for this initiative. A call is scheduled for January 24th for further discussions.
The update highlights the ongoing development work and encourages community feedback and contributions, especially in testing environments like Regtest.
Some days ago we announced our first RFP (Request for Proposal). The goal with this program is to pick up low hanging fruit, on a low priority basis, and reward community members who may want to contribute in a retroactive way.
Project Description
As the Zcash developer community grows, there is an increasing need to for developers to have access to testnet ZEC. ZecHub is inviting developers/students to submit a proposal to create a working testnet ZEC facuet dedicated to the Zcash community.
Background and History
ZecHub provides an open source educational platform where community members can work together on creating, validating, and promoting content that supports the Zcash ecosystem.
ZecHub believes:
Privacy is a human right
Education should be open-source and accessible worldwide
Community members have a right to earn ZEC privately
The ZecHub bounty program exists to fund projects/individuals that advance the usability, security, privacy, and adoption of Zcash.
Project Assumptions
Testnet node configured for mining to aquire new testnet ZEC
Code will be free to consume and distributed via GitHub and the Zcash Community forums.
Proposal Submittal to the ZecHub DAO
Questions should be directed to contact@zechub.wiki clearly identifying this RFP
Project Schedule
No deadline, payment ( in shielded ZEC ) will be sent retroactively. That is, upon a succesfull vote of your proposal in the ZecHub DAO, and verifcation of a working PoC.
Scope of Work
Full UA support
QR support
Configurable amounts
Denial of service defense
Easy to use
Creative front end
Selection Criteria
ZecHub DAO will review all Proposals and make a selection based on the following selection criteria:
Cost
User experience (UX)
Project Approach