[ZcF-general] Zcash Foundation Monthly Update — May, 2019

[Sonya Mann]

Hello friends! Another month, another rundown of Zcash Foundation
activities. Spoiler: The most exciting announcements are at the end.

5/9

Coda and Dekrypt Capital announced the SNARK Challenge, sponsored by the
Zcash Foundation and a few other organizations:
https://coinlist.co/build/coda

"A global competition to speed up the SNARK prover," with more than $100k
in the prize pool.

Coda CTO Izaak Meckler made a video about the SNARK Challenge:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81uR9W5PZ5M

5/9

The second installment of the Human Rights Foundation's series on privacy
and cryptocurrency was published:
https://medium.com/human-rights-foundation-hrf/privacy-and-cryptocurrency-part-ii-bitcoin-wallets-2f68099b055f

We funded this initiative, which is being written by HRF Privacy Technology
Fellow Eric Wall. Background info:
https://www.zfnd.org/blog/human-rights-foundation-privacy-research/

The next installment is going to be about privacy-preserving
cryptocurrencies like Zcash and Monero!

5/10

The Open Money Initiative, sponsored by the Zcash Foundation among other
organizations, debuted the results of their research on cryptocurrency
usage in Venezuela. OMI's blog post:
https://medium.com/@openmoneyinitiative/announcing-the-open-money-initiative-61422b58ad06

CoinDesk article:
https://www.coindesk.com/whats-holding-back-bitcoin-in-venezuela-this-group-is-investigating

5/14

Alongside Paige Peterson from the Electric Coin Company, Josh Cincinnati
(the Foundation's Executive Director) spoke at Consensus 2019. You can see
the video here: https://www.coindesk.com/events/consensus-2019/videos (scroll
down to the video labeled "Electric Coin Company and Zcash Foundation" in
the "Construct" section)

5/14

Also on the Construct stage at Consensus, Zcash Foundation board member
Peter Van Valkenburgh said, "As a director of the Zcash Foundation I don't
want Zcash developers to build a system that maximizes the value of Zcash.
I want them to build the best damn privacy coin they can. That's the
problem with a fiduciary duty of loyalty."

Quote via Lane Rettig on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/lrettig/status/1128691797495025664

5/21

"We are delighted to announce that Deirdre Connolly has joined the Zcash
Foundation as a Core Engineer. [...] At the Zcash Foundation, Deirdre will
be taking ownership of the all-Rust implementation of Zcash and turning it
into a production-quality project."

More details: https://www.zfnd.org/blog/welcome-deirdre/

5/21

The second Zcash Protocol Hangout happened, and the video has been
published: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FnwW6VvSho

The group primarily discussed Blossom and NU3 ZIPs. Paige from the ECC
(mentioned earlier) took notes:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qik04RpQr_rmPuEOo9FejIlCFK1Pv0LSTjA4qGao-EI/edit

The next one is likely to be planned for August.

5/23

We joined the social network Cent, and got a great response from the
community: https://beta.cent.co/+tesygi

5/25

Bola-Ige Alabi-Efeshodiamhe repped Zcash at the Blockchain, AI & Digital
Assets Summit in Nigeria:
https://twitter.com/bolaigeaefe/status/1132307394254528512

5/29

New wallet! 🎊

"The Zcash Foundation is delighted to announce Zepio Wallet, a
shielded-first, cross-platform Zcash wallet that includes a full `zcashd`
node. [...] Zepio is currently available for macOS, Windows, and Linux."
https://www.zfnd.org/blog/zepio-wallet/

Technical choices and development process:
https://medium.com/@andreneves/announcing-zepio-zcash-wallet-bfd836f6609c

5/30

"ZF Grants now supports the Zcash mainnet! [...] You can transact with real
$ZEC on the platform." https://www.zfnd.org/blog/zf-grants-is-ready/

People have already submitted proposals: https://grants.zfnd.org/proposals

On the Zcash Community Forum, a discussion of grant ideas:
https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/faq-around-grant-ideas/33648

That's all for now!

Sonya Mann
Communications Manager
Zcash Foundation
sonya at zfnd.org
@sonyaellenmann <https://twitter.com/sonyaellenmann/>