At the moment, to be able to higher serve the Zcash mission, we’re saying a restructuring of ECC, together with layoffs of valued workforce members. Going ahead, ECC will focus our time and experience on particular elements of the Zcash mission, and assist transition different elements to different organizations within the Zcash group.
We at ECC have been attempting to do an excessive amount of with too few sources, particularly within the final yr and a half because the bear market started to affect our funds. It has grow to be clear this was limiting our means to execute on the issues we’re greatest at.
Zcash has grown and adjusted, and right this moment there are various organizations exterior of ECC who’re additionally dedicated to the Zcash mission, a lot 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 World 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 individuals for his or her contributions to the Zcash motion, and by committing ECC to doing fewer issues and doing them properly, we hope to additional empower them, making Zcash as a broad motion much more resilient and sustainable.
Restructuring ECC was a difficult resolution. It required that we lay off 13 workers — about half of our workforce. Lots of the individuals we let go right this moment had been instrumental in bringing to market groundbreaking applied sciences and concepts that no different workforce on the planet has been in a position to ship. We’re unhappy to half methods with them and can at all times be thankful for 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 consists of:
- Creating a wonderful consumer expertise for proof-of-stake ZEC
- A pockets, constructed by and for Zcashers, that’s straightforward 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 are going to assist transition possession to the broader group of some features ECC has undertaken up to now.
- Help for zcashd exterior of ECC’s Roadmap
- Protocol assessment for Zcash core protocols exterior of ECC’s roadmap
- Alliances and trade assist
- World regulatory relations
- Administration of digital properties, together with z.money and the Zcash-specific social accounts
- Product advertising and marketing
- Zcash associated PR and media engagement
Importantly, our immediate-term work on fixing third-party pockets efficiency points continues to be our highest precedence in the meanwhile, and we’re dedicated to releasing zcashd 5.6.0, an up to date lightwalletd, and new cellular SDKs for iOS and Android quickly.
As with all transition, this restructuring of workforce 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 vital initiatives such because the Filecoin Basis grants and different actions that can profit the Zcash consumer.
That is laborious. I requested the entire ECC workforce to affix me in my work to serve human freedom. It turned our collective mission, and one thing we’ve all fought for day-in and day-out. Whereas we gained’t all have the ability to proceed on this specific path collectively, I’m assured that within the scope of historical past, every considered one of us will look again proudly on what we did collectively for human freedom. I’m grateful for all of the workforce members to whom we mentioned goodbye as workers right this moment, and for those that can proceed at ECC. We stay absolutely dedicated to our mission and imagine ECC is now in a a lot stronger place to serve the Zcash mission, each right this moment and into the long run.
I’ll be becoming a member of an ECC-hosted Twitter Areas on Friday, Could twenty sixth, to reply questions from the group. Please control @electriccoinco for particulars.
