Zcash Shielded News | Volume 9
Why Flexa? ZCG: Meeting Notes 11/25/2024, Spoons & Forks - ECC Update
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
Zashi-Flexa's marketing is going strong! 💪
We already know that Zcash is decentralized encrypted electronic money and that its main goal is to normalize ongoing private payments.
Now... Why is Flexa so important for this? 🧵⤵️
1/ Flexa is changing the payments landscape by prioritizing the needs of customers and merchants over banks, while also protecting both groups from fraud and loss of data privacy.
2/ What sets Flexa apart? Unlike traditional systems, blockchains excel at moving money. Flexa leverages this by using blockchain as the transaction settlement layer while providing a retail-friendly interface on top of it.
3/ With Flexa, efficiency means secure, fast, and cost-effective transactions with minimal exposure of personal data. It's about creating a retail environment where payments are safer and more private.
4/ 🛡️ Flexa's commitment to privacy echoes the ethos of Zcash. They collect only the user information legally required, never share it with third parties (not even merchants), and delete it as soon as legally possible.
The partnership between Flexa & Zcash is growing stronger, and every day more and more users are spending ZEC at retailers in the US.
If you want to dive deeper into this, zashi_app has published a thread with Trevor detailing these topics and more in videos. Check it out here.
Notes from the latest Zcash Community Grants meeting regarding recent applications.
Attenders
BrianGGuyJasonMichaelAlexDeidra M
1| Board Game “Crypto Trader: Zcash Edition” for Zcash
The applicant for this proposal requested funding of 140 ZEC (approximately $5,000) to develop a board game titled "Crypto Trader: Zcash Edition", aimed at educating players about cryptocurrency trading and the privacy features associated with Zcash.
The game would accommodate 2-6 players, who would manage resources, secure transactions, and avoid digital threats while raising awareness about Zcash's unique benefits.
The project was planned for completion within 6-12 weeks, with the production of 100 high-quality copies for distribution among community members.
This proposal was rejected by the ZCG because the team failed to secure additional financial support from sources like Free2z and ZecHub.
2 | Coin Voting 2.0 ✅
From the same creator of yWallet, Han requested $200.00 to develop a coin-based voting system using Orchard funds for governance, airdrops, and Balance Proofs, while maintaining privacy through shielded transactions.
He plans to use Orchard and Halo 2 to implement a voting mechanism where users can vote without moving their funds, ensuring their balances remain private.
The project will be completed in multiple stages, starting with a prototype and basic voting functionalities, followed by full integration of the circuit and RPC tools.
ZCG received feedback from ZF engineers, Pacu and Kris Nuttycomb, on the forum.
In any case, ZCG unanimously voted to approve the grant, with Amber submitting her vote via Signal. Report frequency will be monthly, and the project will be categorized as a non-wallet application in the records.
3 | Community Grant Punchlist ❌
Emmanuel requested $2,000 to create a dashboard for monitoring Zcash Community Grants, displaying progress, milestones, and alerts.
The dashboard would be integrated into the Zcash Community Grants website and would take 3 weeks to develop. However, GGuy informed the forum that the platform will soon be transferred to GitHub, where this functionality will already be included.
ZCG rejected the proposal but is open to applications for improvements on the new platform after the transition.
4 | Zcash Turkey ❌
Batuhan submitted his proposal again to increase awareness of Zcash in Turkey, requesting $4,200 for three months to create educational and promotional content, translate documentation, organize events, and engage local communities.
However, ZCG rejected the proposal, stating that the requirements did not meet the strict community grant criteria, such as a proven track record of impact, similar to the Zcash Spanish team.
In the same discussion, ZCG highlighted that the Global Ambassadors Program was canceled for financial reasons after the drop in ZEC's price, but Jason suggested that it had been successful and could be resumed. Jason considers Batuhan an ideal candidate to represent Zcash in Turkey, given the high cryptocurrency adoption rate in the country, and suggested that ZCG should either reintegrate the program or support ZecHub in its continuation.
5 | Bank-to-Zcash Gateway: A Secure Fiat On/Off Ramp Solution
Valued at $80,000, this proposal was presented to develop a secure and instant conversion solution between fiat currency and Zcash in Argentina, with the possibility of expansion to Brazil.
The central goal is to enable users to convert Argentine Pesos (ARS) to Zcash (ZEC) and vice versa without the need for intermediary exchanges, using local banking systems for fast transfers.
The project includes a mobile app or a Telegram bot as an MVP, with the goal of supporting up to 30,000 monthly transactions and expanding to other exchanges.
The proposal has not yet been voted on, as community feedback will be required. The FPF will assist in analyzing the potential challenges and risks before ZCG makes a decision.
As this update was being written, Bitcoin was hovering just above $100 per coin, and all the OG Bitcoiners are celebrating along with it. It’s certainly an epic milestone.
According to this week's analogy, Josh reflected on the social value of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, highlighting its value built collectively, including the utilities of Spoons and Forks in recent years.
Spoons are like Bitcoin, efficiently serving as "digital gold," but limited to other functions. Zcash, on the other hand, was compared to a Fork, more suitable as "encrypted electronic money." In contrast to other cryptocurrencies, Ethereum is seen as a Swiss army knife—versatile but complex.
The update brings the idea that each tool (or cryptocurrency) has a specific purpose, and its utility depends on how society perceives and uses it—its purpose. With a Matrix-inspired theme, Josh believes that the reality of cryptocurrencies is shaped by collective perception, and that faith and action are necessary to make them useful and relevant, relying on community movement to become effective.
Here’s what ECC spoke into existence this week:
Zashi 📱
Zcash Design
Adjustments and amends to Keystone Wallet integration designs (finalizing changes to both light and dark modes)
Adhoc engineering edits and requests
Continuing design efforts for Home Screen designs, Send/Receive screens, and Maya Integration → Swap)
Working on new app illustration assets
Video asset designs (intro, outro, and title slides)
iOS 🍎
Unique Installs:: 4.82k
Total Downloads: 5.65k
AppStore Rating: 4.9 *
Keystone Zashi (sneak peek)
Keystone Receive flow ->UI done, logic done
QR codes with colored logos + Keystone logo added
Finished flow for signing a transaction with Keystone UI
Addresses presented in Zashi come from the WalletAccount wrapper
Implemented final design tweaks
Localization support of new texts done
Request ZEC flow supports Keystone now
UI drawer issues fixed + iOS 15 support (again)
Keystone iOS SDK
Hardcoded account(s) no more!
AccountUUID massive refactor
Import UFVK added to the SDK
Test suite refactored to reflect latest changes
Android 🤖
Unique Installs: 2.46k
Total Installs (incl. Open Beta)5.33k
PlayStore Rating: 4.9
Keystone Android SDK
The SDK moved away from ZIP 32 Account indexes to Account UUIDs
Several new Account-related APIs have been added
The entire SDK codebase has been updated to adopt these changes (tests included)
Keystone Zashi
Keystone Payment flow - UI done,
business logic blocked by PCZT
Keystone Create account flow → UI done, logic can now adopt the new import account SDK API
Keystone Select account flow ->UI done, logic done
Keystone Receive flow ->UI done, logic done
Address Book → implementation unblocked and agreed on for v1
Missing derivation tools with UUID support, todo - migration!
Settings → waiting for copy updates
Zashi payment flow ->broken derivation of spending key due to missing UUID support on derivation tools
Zcash Core 🦓
NU7
The ZIP Editors / node implementors posted a Viability Assessment of the candidate ZIPs.
ZIP 2004 is out of NU7.
All other ZIPs are technically feasible but “inclined not to include” ZIP 235 due to insufficient usefulness.
Decided what to recommend for ZIPs 234 and 235: these should be implemented behind feature flags to allow more time for governance decisions.
Resolved cryptographic design issues for ZSAs:
zips#955: Attack against Spendability due to ρ potentially not being unique in an issuance action – require an OrchardZSA Action and use its nullifier + index to derive ρ.
What to sign for asset swaps. (Not NU7 but this increases confidence that the design will not need an incompatible transaction parsing change.)
ZSA audit underway.
Keystone
Working full tilt on prerequisites for Keystone:
Multi-account support
Resolved design issues about the Address Book: there will be one Address Book shared between the Zashi and HW wallet accounts. If they need to be separated later, ECC will duplicate them.
Implementation is mostly merged.
PCZTs
Design is essentially done.
Several PRs in flight.
Zcashd wallet replacement deprioritized relative to Keystone.
Outros 🌐
Jason McGee & Josh met to discuss the concerns raised about the inclusion of NSM in NU7, including the time needed for the community to provide feedback on the ongoing soft launch. Overall, both reached a great outcome.
This Tuesday, there was a Twitter Spaces discussion on the Future of Zcash Governance and Development Funding. More information can be found here.
The new Keystone-Zcash wallets are now available for pre-sale with a discount. Hurry up and grab yours! :)
Check out some great clips of Trevor talking about the work done between Flexa & ECC together.
Josh & Jonathan (QEDIT) met last week to discuss the timeline and properties of NU7. Jonathan shared that the audit is almost complete, the testnet is coming soon, and they are preparing to provide educational content for the community.