June is Pride month and this weekend is the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. Here’s footage from one of the earliest Gay Pride demonstrations in New York City. Everyday we build technology to protect people’s freedom to be who they want to be and love who they want to love. Throughout all the struggles we’ve seen in 2020, may this weekend offer an opportunity to celebrate the progress that has been made and reflect on the work we have yet to do.
Here are the updates from this week:
- ECC releases our quarterly transparency report for Q4 2019. Messari provides an analysis of the report.
- We posted a round-up of ECC/ Zcash related events and registration links in the forum. There are plenty of opportunities to join the conversation and contribute!
- Transak, a fiat-to-crypto on/off ramp, now supports Zcash.
- It’s not too late to participate in the Protect Privacy Hackathon. Don’t feel intimidated. We posted three smaller bounties this week to help with documentation
, bug-fixin’ 
and localization 
. - Ecosystem alert: One of our ecosystem partners will soon launch a service to run secure node infrastructure for Zcash. DM @aserrano to discuss outsourcing management of your Zcash node.
- New MGRC candidates submitted their names for consideration. Now a total of 13 individuals are vying for the 5-person committee. See the latest list in the MEGATHREAD.
- ICYMI – here are recordings from past events
- Josh Swihart was on the Anonymous podcast last week discussing privacy and economic freedom. Give it a listen.
- Daira gave a phenomenal ZK Study Club session on Halo optimisations and constructing graphs of elliptic curves. Say that five times fast.
Mark your calendars,
- Sat, 6/27, Arabic Community workshop hosted by Moe Ghashim. ممتاز!
- Tues, 6/30, Zeal Call: We’re spotlighting hackathon submissions and Presidio Principles with special guest Sheila Warren from the World Economic Forum. More info here. Register here.
- Thur, 7/2, inaugural Arborist call: Join us for an open Zcash protocol development meeting. @hdevalence will present on a Zcash-Cosmos Pegzone design and @reldev will cover proposed Network Upgrade Pipeline improvements, Register here.
- Tues, 7/7, July Gardening club, register here.
- Wed, 7/8, EY is hosting a webinar on ZKPs in Ethereum. Register here.
Community Shout Outs – Shout out to Adesuwa and Agnel Vishal for presenting their Zcash projects at the Gitcoin mid-hack demo today.
This week in privacy, Boston bans the use of face surveillance by the city government. In Michigan, NYT reports on the story of Robert Julian-Borchak Williams, a man wrongfully accused and jailed because of facial recognition.
Facebook loses antitrust case in Germany. They’re also losing out on a bunch of advertising revenue as Verizon, Unilever and others boycott the platform by suspending advertising spends. This boycott stems from Facebook’s failures to moderate content and hate speech on the platform.
Keep an eye on Brazil, a new bill dubbed the “fake news” bill proposes dramatic restrictions on privacy and encryption in the name of curtailing fake news. EFF has a great explainer on the bill and its possible consequences. Brazilian blockchain expert, Rosine Kadamani writes about how Uyghur surveillance in China impacts privacy protections for people all over the world.
In crypto news, Argo buys $500K worth of Zcash miners. I hope they are ready to start mining to shielded coinbase! SHE256 publishes a comprehensive beginners guide to blockchain. Have a great weekend y’all.
