In the present day, with a view to higher serve the Zcash mission, we’re saying a restructuring of ECC, together with layoffs of valued crew members. Going ahead, ECC will focus our time and experience on particular components of the Zcash mission, and assist transition different components to different organizations within the Zcash group.
We at ECC have been making an attempt to do an excessive amount of with too few assets, particularly within the final yr and a half because the bear market started to affect our funds. It has turn out to be clear this was limiting our capability to execute on the issues we’re greatest at.
Zcash has grown and adjusted, and in the present day there are a lot of organizations exterior of ECC who’re additionally dedicated to the Zcash mission, lots of them funded by the Zcash Dev Fund, together with the Zcash Group Grants committee, Zingo Labs, Nighthawk Apps, the Zcash Basis, Zcash Media, the Zcash International Ambassadors program, and plenty of different people and organizations. There are additionally the promised contributions to Zcash by QEdit and Shielded Labs and by the Filecoin and Anoma tasks. We’re grateful to those folks for his or her contributions to the Zcash motion, and by committing ECC to doing fewer issues and doing them nicely, we hope to additional empower them, making Zcash as a broad motion much more resilient and sustainable.
Restructuring ECC was a difficult choice. It required that we lay off 13 staff — about half of our crew. Lots of the folks we let go in the present day had been instrumental in bringing to market groundbreaking applied sciences and concepts that no different crew on the planet has been capable of ship. We’re unhappy to half methods with them and can all the time be pleased about the chance we needed to work with these unimaginable people.
Within the coming weeks, ECC will launch a revised roadmap centered on empowering ZEC holders and giving them a voice. This contains:
- Creating a superb person expertise for proof-of-stake ZEC
- A pockets, constructed by and for Zcashers, that’s simple to make use of and accessible for anybody
- A mobile-wallet SDK that’s helpful to different Zcash builders
- US-based coverage work to make sure ZEC, self-custody, and staking stay viable within the USA
We’ll assist transition possession to the broader group of some features ECC has undertaken previously.
- Assist for zcashd exterior of ECC’s Roadmap
- Protocol assessment for Zcash core protocols exterior of ECC’s roadmap
- Alliances and alternate assist
- International regulatory relations
- Administration of digital properties, together with z.money and the Zcash-specific social accounts
- Product advertising
- Zcash associated PR and media engagement
Importantly, our immediate-term work on fixing third-party pockets efficiency points continues to be our highest precedence for the time being, and we’re dedicated to releasing zcashd 5.6.0, an up to date lightwalletd, and new cell SDKs for iOS and Android quickly.
As with all transition, this restructuring of crew and priorities will take a while to totally settle, and there are another tasks and initiatives which can be nearing completion — such because the relaunch of z.money and a proposal to foster group possession of this and different Zcash digital properties — that we’ll be delivering to the group within the close to time period. We’re nonetheless participating on essential initiatives such because the Filecoin Basis grants and different actions that can profit the Zcash person.
That is arduous. I requested all the ECC crew to affix me in my work to serve human freedom. It grew to become our collective mission, and one thing we’ve all fought for day-in and day-out. Whereas we received’t all have the ability to proceed on this explicit path collectively, I’m assured that within the scope of historical past, every one in all us will look again proudly on what we did collectively for human freedom. I’m grateful for all of the crew members to whom we mentioned goodbye as staff in the present day, and for those that can proceed at ECC. We stay totally dedicated to our mission and consider ECC is now in a a lot stronger place to serve the Zcash mission, each in the present day and into the long run.
I’ll be becoming a member of an ECC-hosted Twitter Areas on Friday, Might twenty sixth, to reply questions from the group. Please keep watch over @electriccoinco for particulars.