Announcing Zcash Blossom and proposed feature goals

Nobody can deny that Zcash is at the bleeding edge of cryptographic innovation. Some might say this is a con because the cryptography isn't time tested. Now they are bringing a lot more features and innovations. Here is a few of them:

Harmony Mining

• What is it? A dual-proof-of-work scheme, where one algorithm is backwards compatible with current mining equipment, and another is designed to work well with GPUs on a temporary time scale.
• Who does this affect? miners
• Why is this a goal? By attracting distinct mining userbases (ASIC & GPU owners) we aim to make the Zcash ecosystem more resilient by spreading issuance and political influence among distinct kinds of stakeholders.

Split Founders’ Reward

• What is it? Alter the consensus rules so that there are distinct FR addresses for the Zcash Foundation, Zcash Company Strategic Reserve, and the remainder.
• Who does this affect? FR Recipients and Governance/Transparency focused public
• Why is this a goal? This decouples these three funding streams organizationally, legally, and operationally. It further reinforces transparency as to the structure of the Founders’ Reward.

Transaction Confirmation Usability and Security Improvements

• What is it? Improve usability and security of fees and confirmations while accounting for growing transaction volume, demand spikes, and transaction-based DOS scenarios.
• Who does this affect? Transaction senders and receivers.
• Why is this a goal? We cannot prevent demand shocks or growth approaching scalability limits, but we can and should help users understand what is happening and help them protect themselves.

Light Client Protocol Dovetailing

• What is it? Alter the base consensus protocol to reinforce light client support.
• Who does this affect? (Future potential) Zcash light client end users.
• Why is this a goal? We anticipate more light client users than full node users in the future (all other things being equal), so any streamlining of this use case in the base consensus protocol is potentially valuable.

BOLT Support

• What is it? Base consensus support for the BOLT second-layer protocol (see our introductory blog post 14).
• Who does this affect? (Future potential) Users of BOLT-enabled light wallets.
• Why is this a goal? Second-layer channel-based protocols may enable use cases that allow substantially more transactions with minimized capacity impact on the base consensus protocol. A direct BOLT integration with Zcash would have stronger privacy protections than existing second layer systems, which may be especially important if service providers centralize.

Retire Sprout Addresses

• What is it? Turn off all support for Sprout addresses and funds stored at those addresses except the ability to transfer funds out of those addresses.
• Who does this affect? Sprout users.
• Why is this a goal? This removes technical debt and simplifies the ecosystem moving forward. Additionally it prompts usage of the Sprout→Sapling turnstile 11.

Rollback Protection and Hardening

• What is it? Add protections against rollbacks larger than some predetermined length.
• Who does this affect? All transactors, especially multi-user service providers.
• Why is this a goal? All users would reject a large enough rollback. Some users would reject a smaller rollback. By codifying a well-known standard for the maximum acceptable rollback depth, we reduce economic uncertainty across the ecosystem. Other consensus features as well as external products and services can begin relying on this design decision. (Nuance: this does not answer the question of what people should or will do in the event of such a rollback. It simply ensures that no one will naively or accidentally proceed in a business-as-usual manner in this event thus protecting them from harm.)

Custodian Reinforcement

• What is it? This includes a variety of potential features that can potentially protect typical end-users as well as specialized custodians. This may include recipient address verification, “vault functionality”, “I Got Burgled Button”, transaction cancellation, or transfer rate limiting functionality.
• Who does this affect? All users.
• Why is this a goal? A substantial weakness of cryptocurrencies is how difficult self-custody is for wide user bases. By introducing protocol features that can help users protect themselves against theft or loss and/or enable custodian providers to reduce their operational risk, we aim to make Zcash safer for a larger user base.

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