Right this moment, as a way 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 assets, particularly within the final 12 months and a half because the bear market started to affect our funds. It has change into clear this was limiting our skill to execute on the issues we’re finest at.
Zcash has grown and adjusted, and right now 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 lots of different people and organizations. There are additionally the promised contributions to Zcash by QEdit and Shielded Labs and by the Filecoin and Anoma initiatives. 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 workers — about half of our workforce. Lots of the folks we let go right now have 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 glad 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 consists of:
- Creating a superb consumer 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 capabilities ECC has undertaken up to now.
- Assist for zcashd exterior of ECC’s Roadmap
- Protocol evaluate for Zcash core protocols exterior of ECC’s roadmap
- Alliances and change help
- International 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 cell SDKs for iOS and Android quickly.
As with every transition, this restructuring of workforce and priorities will take a while to completely settle, and there are another initiatives 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 partaking 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 hitch 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 gained’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 every 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 now, and for those that can proceed at ECC. We stay absolutely dedicated to our mission and consider ECC is now in a a lot stronger place to serve the Zcash mission, each right now 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.