@Joshswihart i would love to hear your opinion here. zooko

said that you will not get the same privacy guaranties on ETH that you will get on ZEC.

BUT with new protocols like AZTEC getting more serious, i am wondering if zcash will be the one to offer the strongest privacy!?

the zcash shielded pool somehow works like the privacy pool of aztec (previously zk.money)
once the funds enter the pool, you can enjoy the privacy from all the the other assets deposited that share the same pool.

so my question now is, where will zcash be superior in that case? where do you see zcash value here?

will it be cheaper to use (i can't imagine that because bridging from one chain to another is expensive) or will it provide stronger privacy?

zcash is standing next to something that can do the same, but the competition will have programmability on top.
i am honestly just trying to figure out if we are supporting something with our investment that already got left behind?

would love to hear everyones opinion here! this is no FUD, i want to understand if i am holding the right investment!

as mentioned before, i am holding 1000 ZEC now! please help me understand if i am overthinking all that, or if my thoughts are reasonable.

THaNKS

Most of the world's biggest fortunes have always been and continue to be built by people and organisations that bet big, all in, on the transformative technology or business they have created. Ie. Gates Microsoft, Bezos Amazon, Musk Tesla. It was the same with railroad fortunes and 19th/20th century indistrialists' wealth creation- The really big rewards come from picking the winner and sticking with it. ZCG has the job of allocating Zcash community funds to worthy projects and to my mind they are following this tried and tested rational: i.e they have bet big on ZSAs by allocating an outsized part of the community funds to Qedit to develop this tech. This will ultimately result in an industry leading marriage of privacy, programmability and interoperability. When this bet pays off for the zcash community (and I strongly believe that it will), ZEC holders will be rewarded like Elon was when Tesla was vindicated and like Jeff was with Amazon when the world's shopping habits gravitated towards his model. All the fears any of us has is natural. You can bet Elon had many sleepless nights over the past two decades. But in the end, as David Brent says, "a good idea is a good idea for life!" Zcash with ZSAs wins the race.

thanks for your words! i appreciate your thoughts and agree to some if them. BUT, to compare it with Tesla and Amazon is a bit off in my opinion. both of them had a first mover advantage and at that time nowhere close to the competition that zcash has now. for zcash to succeed, it needs to be better, cheaper or easier to use than it's competitors. and even if we (see myself part of zcash force now) can get there, we still need the users, BUT all current plans to get more people joining the ecosystem failed. we need to get the word out and use exciting things like ZSA to get others excited! i have to ask on a telegram group to find out what can be done, that speaks for itself 🙈

I take your point. On the other hand this may not be the zero sum game that many fear. As bitcoin leads mass adoption and the world turns towards embracing crypto there may be such an enormous need for reliable and interoperable privacy/programmability solutions that our earlier concerns may seem overnblown. Regarding widening the net to grow the community, I myself am building a venue to incubate and support zcash friendly and zcash powered businesses here in The EU. I hope this model i create may ultimately become something that can be replicated in other jurisdictions, and while the initial scope will be local and modest, the essential idea is to provide a space where businesses and individuals can create a circular economy using zcash as the medium of exchange. People criticize the devfund, but while it is definitely more important to build the techrails for things like ZSAs to run on, nevertheless, community based projects like GAP fund efforts to build zcash initiatives like the one I am working on.

i hope there will be interest in the privacy solutions that people involved with zcash are working for! looking forward to see what you are building there in the future! i am based in europe too. i just try to think rational, people always tend to compare things. and if zcash isn't more private, cheaper and at least as easy to use, the users won't leave other chains to come and visit zcash. (the network effect of ethereum is crazy, at least it is as of now) and if Zcash won't be better than aztec, i acn already tell you how far the discussion on socials will get you. and aztec is doing a good job with everything that they do, the competition is not easy! and they have way more funding, they can hire 10 times the people that zcash can or could do. that's also the reason why i asked that questions above.

Thanks 😊 I hope so too- I'll keep you updated here. We got the building licensed earlier this month (at last 😅) so watch this space for updates earlier next year. 😀

@joshswihart i think there's many of us that would like to hear your opinion on that! thanks

Not financial advice... You are making a decision based on the team, community, and its ability to innovate. I've heard about new Zcash-killers for years... Monero was going to kill it, then Dash, Beam, MW, MW/LTC, Tornado, Aztec, Cardano with privacy, etc etc... It's incredibly hard to do build a strong protocol, community, repuatation, and industry support. Could an L2 make a dent? Maybe. Maybe not. The most significant asset that I have is my time. I didn't choose to go somewhere else. I made the biggest of bets on this project and this team because I believe its our best hope for self-soverign private wealth storage and utility. We've been our own worst enemy in recent years. Up to us to change that. We'll need to run better and faster than we have been but the ingredients are all here (aside from a fat treasury).

Well said. And over the long term human capital is worth far more than cash reserves or treasury capital. One of the things that originally drew me to zcash was the people involved in rendering it into existencein the first place. The fact that, as you say, notably you (and also others) continue to make "the biggest of bets" on zcash by devoting their time and expertise to the project when there are other more lucrative alternative ways they could spend their time is one of the main reasons this project stands apart from others and continues (in my view) to offer the best risk-reward opportunity to succeed as the solution that is adopted by the masses. Yes there are other projects, and nothing in life is certain, but of all privacy projects out there this is the only one I would give my time to.

couldn't think of a better answer @joshswihart happy to have such a leader and dedicated team working on zcash!