Today’s newsletter covers October 23 – November 7, 2019 🤗

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On Wednesday, ECC and ZF signed an agreement about the Zcash trademark!

ECC has donated the mark to the Foundation. ZF will cover the financial burden of continued assignment and protection of the mark, while both the ECC and Foundation share bilateral power to enforce and protect the mark. […] This agreement establishes a solid basis for the Zcash ecosystem to flourish. It provides a balance of power over what counts as “Zcash” or “ZEC,” while maintaining interoperability with standard legal and business frameworks. We are grateful for the Zcash community’s patience, and happy to reach a joint solution with ECC.

In our blog post, ZF promised to share a concrete timeline for the next round of governance activities soon:

We are preparing in earnest to restart the community sentiment collection for NU4 [the Zcash network upgrade pertinent to development funding]. More details will be available on the new timeline from the Foundation by Friday, November 8.

Now is a good time to review the active Zcash Improvement Proposals. There are new ones that you may not have seen yet! Check the bottom of the list.

Also, don’t miss the recent Zcash Protocol Hangout where ZIPs were discussed! Foundation employees, ECC employees, and various Zcash community members all attended and participated.

ZF advisor Eran Tromer has already suggested next steps on the Zcash Community Forum.

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The 1.0 release of ZecWallet Lite is available!

Zecwallet

@zecwallet If you’ve had problems syncing the Zcash blockchain in the past, please look at Zecwallet Lite. It can sync 1000 blocks/sec, and will give you a usable wallet in under a minute!

github.com/adityapk00/zec…



Nov. 7, 2019, 7:22 p.m.

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We published “A Cypherpunk Privacy Reading List” to get people thinking about why privacy matters, and how technology can help.

We find ourselves grappling with questions as contentious as they are ancient: Who has power? Who ought to? How is that power constrained in actuality? The philosophical and political dimensions of privacy end up affecting the tools that you and I are able to use — often, the tools that we have access to at all.

Read the rest 📚

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ZF helped sponsor the #zk0x04 edition of ZK Summit, a recurring conference hosted by the podcast Zero Knowledge. The whole event was livestreamed! Which is excellent, since ZK Summit’s jam-packed schedule was a worthy follow-up to SNARKtember. For example…

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Investment firm Grayscale published a report on Zcash. It begins with a solid outline of the basics:

Zcash is a decentralized, peer-to-peer (P2P) digital currency and payment network equipped with privacy- and security-enhanced features. It is the first network to integrate zk-SNARKS, a breakthrough application of zero-knowledge cryptography, which validates transactions without revealing information such as the address of the sender, receiver, or payment amount.

Grayscale

@GrayscaleInvest Do you know about #Zcash? It may just be the digital currency of choice for privacy and digital information security. Learn more in our Introduction to $ZEC as part of our Building Blocks series:

gryscl.co/31zdWF6



Nov. 4, 2019, 7:12 p.m.

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Zcash turned three on October 28. Happy (belated) Zday to all of us!

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That’s all, friends! Until next time 🦓