Zbay: messaging, community, and marketplaces over Zcash

Applicant background

Our team brings software development and product design experience in both the crypto and traditional stack, as well as a strong track record in activism for privacy and freedom online.

• Marek Kowalski is co-founder and CTO of Rumblefish, a software development team specialized in blockchain, fintech, and e-commerce, whose clients have included MakerDAO, Talos, and Connect Your Care. Marek leads Zbay's two full-time engineers, Janusz Kornaga and Norbert Bodziony.
• Jason Gaylor is a senior visual and UX designer, formerly VP of Design at GetGlue.
• Holmes Wilson has conceived and product-managed both web 2.0 projects (such as https://amara.org & https://hello.vote) and p2p desktop apps (http://getmiro.com/). He also co-founded and co-directed Fight for the Future, a leading Internet freedom activism organization.

You can try out Zbay by joining our beta: https://zbay.app/

You can see our design process—and some planned features—in our Figma: https://www.figma.com/file/0j7Nna9zWmfOSNmRmQK1Uh/zbay-app-design

Motivation and overview

Zbay is like Slack or Keybase with a marketplace, built on Zcash. Like Zcash it has infinite potential uses, but in the near term we are focused on building a tool that supports journalists and journalism. We believe we can use the Zcash network to give journalists a way to communicate with sources and crowdfund their work that is more secure and convenient than existing alternatives.

Technical approach

Zbay is a Node/Electron/React app for Mac, Windows, and GNU/Linux built around a locally running instance of zcashd. Once users have installed and synced Zbay, they communicate exclusively over the Zcash network through their own instance of zcashd. Upcoming development will focus on increasing user privacy and ease-of-use.

Execution risks

1. Failing to find product/market fit - We are mitigating this risk by focusing on journalists and journalism as a promising initial niche, providing some features that exist nowhere else, while also adapting familiar user interface paradigms and approaches from popular existing models.
2. Scaling problems if we grow too fast - If we run into scaling problems we can wait for layer 1 scaling improvements, work with the Zcash community to address specific bottlenecks, roll our own solutions off-chain, or combine these approaches.
3. Finding ongoing funding - If we make a popular way to use Zcash, we can capture some of this value through a voluntary fee, anti-spam mechanisms like username or channel registration fees, or gofundme-style tips. With traction, we believe we can find outside investment that is consistent with our values and continued autonomy—similar projects have. We may also apply to the major grants fund.

Downsides

1. Possible strain on Zcash network - We address this above, in risks. To the extent necessary we can address bottlenecks or move activity off-chain.
2. Spam and abuse - We see this more as a frontier than a downside. We've built and are expanding moderation features based on principles outlined here and believe communities on a censorship-resistant network will recognize the need for moderators and gravitate to well-moderated spaces.

Evaluation plan & tasks

A list of objectives and key results follows:

Objective 1: Design user interviews

• Design interviews to inform threat model & product
• Seek external review of interview design and outreach materials

Objective 2: Light wallet functionality

• Switch to light wallet
• QA & test

Objective 3: Conduct 15 user interviews

• 5 with journalists
• 5 with activists who provide support and training to journalists
• 5 user with users who are representative of sources (e.g. activists & insiders)

Objective 4: Threat modeling

• Threat model based user interviews, review of existing practices, tools & research
• Define milestone to meet security needs of journalists, sources
• Publish & seek external review (e.g. in Zcash community forum)

Objective 5: Address threats

• Implement milestone defined in previous phase
• Complete as much as possible in 8 1-week sprints
• Create follow-on proposal for remaining work (e.g. security audit)

Objective 6: Market to journalists

• Site & brand conveys value proposition, security benefits, and limitations to interviewees
• 4/5 interviewees in each category say they understand the value proposition, security benefits, and limitations

Schedule

Budget and justification

Dev team $9,060 / month

Product manager $4,166 / month

UX designer, part-time. $2,295 / month

External services (AWS, Github, Gsuite, Slack) $300 / month

Total monthly burn: $15,821 / month

Total (4 months): $63,284