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Zcash is moving to Zebra

by Alan Fairless, Jack Gavigan, Andrew Miller and Zooko Wilcox Following conversations at Zcon4 in Barcelona, the Zcash Foundation (ZF) and Electric Coin Co. (ECC)

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Zebra Stable Release

The Zcash Foundation is pleased to announce the release of the first stable, audited version of Zebra, Zebra 1.0.0. What Zebra Does and Why it

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Zcon Voices Brazil Recap

On Saturday 18th March, the Zcash Foundation (ZF) co-hosted its first-ever Zcon Voices event.  Zcon Voices: Brazil was held at the Museu do Amanhã in

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Minor Grants Applications

In February, we announced a new, experimental Zcash Foundation (ZF) grants program, nicknamed “Minor Grants”, for smaller grants of up to $25,000. We’re pleased to

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Oblivious Message Retrieval

The Zcash Foundation has been looking into Oblivious Message Retrieval (OMR) to determine whether it offers a potential solution to the recent performance problems that have affected Zcash wallet users, and whether there are any advantages to be gained from implementing this in a Zcash context.

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FROST Performance

In this post, we briefly describe the threshold signature scheme FROST, and present benchmark results for our FROST implementation. We also describe one optimization that greatly improves its speed, especially for scenarios with a large number of signers.

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Board Minutes: December 12, 2022

Started at 3:03 pm ET.  Directors present: Andrew Miller, Peter Van Valkenburgh, Jack Gavigan, Amber Baldet, J.W. Verret, Marta Belcher, Ian Miers (left meeting at 3:15) Foundation

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Zebra Release Candidate

The Zcash Foundation is pleased to announce that we have recently tagged our first release candidate of Zebra (zebra 1.0.0-rc.0), the alternative Zcash node implementation

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Welcome, Deidra!

The Zcash Foundation is happy to welcome Deidra M., our inaugural Operations and Events Coordinator. Deidra will support the Foundation’s day-to-day operations activities, as well

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Board Minutes: November 28, 2022

Started at 1:04 pm ET.  Directors present: Andrew Miller, Amber Baldet, Peter Van Valkenburgh, Jack Gavigan, Ian Miers Foundation employees also present: Alex Bornstein (Secretary)

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Farewell, Fungai

Fungai joined the Foundation at the beginning of this year, as our interim Engineering Project Manager, while our Engineering Manager was away on sabbatical. He

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Board Minutes: September 19, 2022

Started at 1:04 pm ET.  Directors present: Andrew Miller, Amber Baldet, Peter Van Valkenburgh, Jack Gavigan, Ian Miers Foundation employees also present: Alex Bornstein (Secretary)

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Farewell, Winfred

Winfred joined the Foundation nearly a year ago as the organization’s first Head of Communications, and in that time she elevated the Foundation’s external communications

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Board Minutes: July 18, 2022

Started at 4:04 pm ET.  Directors present: Andrew Miller, Ian Miers, Amber Baldet, Peter Van Valkenburgh, Jack Gavigan  Foundation employees also present: Alex Bornstein (Secretary)

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June 2022 ZCAP Expansion

We previously announced a plan to expand the Zcash Community Advisory Panel (ZCAP) ahead of the upcoming Zcash Community Grants (ZCG) committee election. Following this

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Board Minutes: May 16, 2022

Started at 1:02 pm ET.  Directors present: Andrew Miller, Ian Miers, Amber Baldet, Peter Van Valkenburgh, Matthew Green, Jack Gavigan  Foundation employees also present: Alex

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Farewell, Janito

Janito joined the Foundation last June, and, over the past eleven months, he has proven himself to be a valuable member of the Foundation team.

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Zcon3 Event Announcement

Zcon3 is headed to Vegas! The Zcash Foundation is excited to announce that Zcon3 will be held in-person, at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas,

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Board Minutes: April 18, 2022

Started at 1:10 pm ET.  Directors present: Andrew Miller, Amber Baldet, Matthew Green, Jack Gavigan, Peter Van Valkenburgh Foundation employees also present: Alex Bornstein (Secretary)

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Board Minutes: February 11, 2022

Started at 3:06 pm ET.  Directors present: Andrew Miller, Ian Miers, Amber Baldet, Matthew Green, Jack Gavigan.  Foundation employees also present: Alex Bornstein (Secretary) Ian

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Welcoming the new ZOMG Committee

On December 20th, the Zcash Foundation polled the Zcash Community Advisory Panel (ZCAP) to determine which candidates should be elected to the next Major Grants Review Committee,

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Expanding the ZCAP

Last week, we announced the revised schedule for ZOMG elections. The ZOMG Committee is elected by the Zcash Community Advisory Panel (ZCAP), a panel of community

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Board Minutes: November 19, 2021

Started at 3:04pm ET. Directors present: Amber Baldet, Jack Gavigan, Ian Miers, Andrew Miller, Peter Van Valkenburgh. Foundation employees also present: Alex Bornstein (Secretary) Apologies:

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ZOMG & Conflicts of Interest

During recent discussions with potential candidates for the Zcash Open Major Grants Committee (ZOMG), the question of conflicts of interest arose, as some candidates have

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Improving Support for ZOMG

Since November last year, the Foundation has provided support to ZOMG (the Zcash Open Major Grants Committee; formerly known as the Major Grants Review Committee) in the

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Board Minutes: July 2, 2021

Started at 4:05pm ET. Directors present: Andrew Miller, Matthew Green, Peter Van Valkenburgh, Ian Miers, Amber Baldet (joined at 4:50pm ET), Jack Gavigan. Foundation employees

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Board Minutes: June 25, 2021

Started at 4pm EST. Directors present: Andrew Miller, Matthew Green, Peter Van Valkenburgh, Ian Miers, Amber Baldet, Jack Gavigan. Foundation employees also present: Alex Bornstein.

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Board Minutes: March 26, 2021

Started at 4:30pm EST. Directors present: Andrew Miller, Matthew Green, Peter Van Valkenburgh, Ian Miers, Amber Baldet. Foundation employees also present: Jack Gavigan. Topics discussed:

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Farewell Jane

Jane joined the Foundation last June, and, over the past nine months, she has applied her deep Rust expertise to the Zebra project, helping lay

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Board Minutes: February 5, 2021

Started at 4:35 P.M ET. Directors present: Andrew Miller, Matthew Green, Peter Van Valkenburgh, Ian Miers, Amber Baldet. Foundation employees also present: Antonie Hodge, Jack

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Goodbye, Henry

After two years as the Zcash Foundation’s Principal Cryptographic Researcher, Henry de Valence is stepping down. Henry was the Zcash Foundation’s first technical hire and left a deep imprint

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FROST at SAC and Updates

We are pleased to say that FROST has been accepted into the Selected Areas in Cryptography (SAC) 2020 Conference, which took place last week. We thank

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Board Minutes: October 20, 2020

Started at 4:00 P.M ET. Directors present: Andrew Miller, Matthew Green, Peter Van Valkenburgh, Ian Miers. Foundation employees also present: Antonie Hodge, Chelsea Komlo, Danika

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Farewell to George

It is on a bittersweet note that we announce that George Tankersley is leaving the Foundation. George has been a part of the Zcash community for nearly

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Board Minutes: July 15, 2020

Started at 11:35 A.M. ET. Directors present: Andrew Miller, Amber Baldet, Matthew Green, Peter Van Valkenburgh, Ian Miers. Foundation employees also present: Josh Cincinnati, Antonie

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Announcing a New Version of FROST

We are pleased to announce an updated version of FROST, a Flexible Round-Optimized Schnorr Threshold signature scheme. FROST is designed to reduce the interaction between participants

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Board Minutes: June 1, 2020

Started at 1:05pm ET. Directors present: Andrew Miller, Amber Baldet, Matthew Green, Peter Van Valkenburgh, Ian Miers. Foundation employees also present: Josh Cincinnati, Antonie Hodge.

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Board Minutes: April 3, 2020

Started at 3:08pm ET. Directors present: Andrew Miller, Matthew Green, Peter Van Valkenburgh, Ian Miers. Foundation employees also present: Josh Cincinnati, Antonie Hodge. Topics discussed:

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ZIP 1014 Poll Results

The combined Community Advisory Panel and forum user poll on ZIP 1014 is complete. Of 119 eligible participants, 88 voted, representing similar levels of turnout to the

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Board Minutes: January 29, 2020

Started at 3:20pm ET. Directors present: Andrew Miller, Matthew Green, Peter Van Valkenburgh, Ian Miers, Amber Baldet. Foundation employees also present: Josh Cincinnati, Antonie Hodge.

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ZF Grants 2.0

We last updated you on Zcash Foundation grants in June. At the time, we had just debuted ZF Grants, the community funding platform that Grant.io built for us. It’s

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Presenting a Modified ZIP 1012

As promised in the Foundation’s last post, I’d like to present the Foundation’s proposed updates to ZIP 1012. Thanks to community feedback on our proposed changes to

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Board Minutes: December 6, 2019

Started at 3:05pm ET. Directors present: Andrew Miller, Matthew Green, Peter Van Valkenburgh, Ian Miers, Amber Baldet. Foundation employees also present: Josh Cincinnati, Antonie Hodge.

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Engineering Roadmap 2020

At the beginning of this year, executive director Josh Cincinnati set goals for the Zcash Foundation, “with a renewed energy toward redistributing centers of unilateral power

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Board Minutes: October 30, 2019

Started at 3:00pm ET. Directors present: Andrew Miller, Matthew Green, Peter Van Valkenburgh, Ian Miers. Foundation employees also present: Josh Cincinnati, Antonie Hodge, George Tankersley.

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Board Minutes: October 11, 2019

Started at 8:35pm ET. Directors present: Andrew Miller, Matthew Green, Peter Van Valkenburgh. Foundation employees also present: Josh Cincinnati, Antonie Hodge. Topics discussed: Trademark discussion

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Board Minutes: August 31, 2019

Started at 1:05pm ET. Directors present: Andrew Miller, Amber Baldet, Ian Miers, Matthew Green, Peter Van Valkenburgh. Foundation employees also present: Josh Cincinnati, Antonie Hodge.

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Board Minutes: August 5, 2019

Started at 10:45am ET. Directors present: Andrew Miller, Amber Baldet, Ian Miers, Matthew Green, Peter Van Valkenburgh. Foundation employees also present: Josh Cincinnati, Antonie Hodge.

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Board Minutes: July 10, 2019

Started at 3pm ET. Directors present: Andrew Miller, Amber Baldet, Ian Miers, Matthew Green, Peter Van Valkenburgh. Foundation employees also present: Josh Cincinnati, Antonie Hodge.

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Zcon1 Recap

Zcon1, the second annual privacy and technology conference hosted by the Zcash Foundation, was held in Split, Croatia on June 22 – 24, 2019. It

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Introducing Zepio Wallet

The Zcash Foundation is delighted to announce Zepio Wallet, a shielded-first, cross-platform Zcash wallet that includes a full zcashd node. Sync and spend to your heart’s content! (Or

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Board Minutes: May 21, 2019

Started at 4pm ET. Directors present: Andrew Miller, Amber Baldet, Ian Miers, Matthew Green, Peter Van Valkenburgh. Foundation employees also present: Josh Cincinnati, Antonie Hodge.

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Board Minutes: May 13, 2019

Started at 11am ET in New York City. Directors present: Andrew Miller (via telephone), Amber Baldet (via telephone), Ian Miers, Matthew Green, Peter Van Valkenburgh.

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Board Minutes: May 6, 2019

Started at 4pm ET. Directors present: Andrew Miller, Amber Baldet, Ian Miers, Matthew Green, Peter Van Valkenburgh. Employees also present: Josh Cincinnati, Antonie Hodge. Topics

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ZecWallet: New Name and Rapid Progress

Last November, the Zcash Foundation announced our ongoing financial support of zec-qt-wallet, an open-source application created by Aditya Kulkarni. The wallet is a shielded-first, cross-platform GUI that

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Announcing ZF Grants

The Zcash Foundation’s new platform for grants and community funding, ZF Grants, is in open beta on the Zcash testnet! The full launch will come in

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Board Minutes: November 15, 2018

Started 2pm ET. Board members in attendance: Andrew Miller, Peter Van Valkenburgh, Ian Miers, Matt Green Foundation employees also present: Josh Cincinnati, Antonie Hodge Topics

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Scaleable Privacy and Threats

Ian Miers’ Zcon0 presentation on the importance of financial privacy, and how technology can be used to achieve it, is now available as a professionally edited video.

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Zcon0 Recap

Zcon0 was our first annual conference, and it went incredibly well. We spent June 26 – 28 in beautiful Montréal, where we were blessed with

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Board Minutes: June 28, 2018

Started 3pm EDT Board members in attendance: Amber Baldet, Andrew Miller, Peter Van Valkenburgh, Ian Miers, Matt Green Foundation employees also present: Josh Cincinnati (virtually),

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Board Minutes: June 22, 2018

17:00-18:05 EDT. Board members in attendance: Andrew, Matt, Peter Foundation employees also present: Josh, Antonie Discussion of proposed Conflict of Interest Policy Vote to approve

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