Zcash meet-up topics

We have a Berkeley Zcash meet-up brewing. A few people who live around here have expressed interest.

I'm not connected to Zcash or the Zerocoin Electric Coin Company in any way. I'm just an interested observer and participant in the network. I'm not a cryptographer or a cypherpunk, a scientist or a whale. I do have about a decade of software development experience and a bachelor's degree in Math. So, trying to understand cryptography is a little hobby of mine. From my perspective, bringing cutting edge cryptography to laypeople like myself is an interesting challenge.

I'm going to jot down some topics that would interest me and perhaps others. After giving it a few moments of thought, I realize that we have a lot to talk about. I'll try to group these topics into subjects like cryptography, economics, Zcash network and community, government interactions, privacy, let's see. There is a lot of overlapping topics so, IDK. I'm going to dump them here and see what people have interest in. Let me know what I've forgotten to add. Maybe we can get some speakers on these topics and others in the future.

Cryptography

• Understanding zk-SNARKS
  • http://qed-it.com/2017/07/the-hunting-of-the-snark/ in depth discussions
  • How do I prove that I found Waldo without revealing where Waldo is?
  • Explaining zk cryptography to my 6 year old (to me, actually :D).
• General Cryptography
  • Understanding hash functions
  • Elliptic curve cryptography explained to non-cryptographers
  • Understanding public key cryptography

Zcash

• How is Zcash different from bitcoin (technical, in-depth?)
• Performance of shielded transactions
• Roadmap, what to expect
• Killer app ideas

Privacy / Security

• Operational security to run a node and transact with privacy? tor, vpn, i2p, wut?
  • What happens when a government moves against privacy?
• Other privacy techniques with blockchain
  • Mixing, ring signatures ...
  • Future zk technologies like zk-STARKS
  • Confidentiality and layer-2 solutions like Lightning Network

Community

• Network and community statistics
  • How may nodes? How many users? Hashrate over time?
  • Flypool dominance? 51% attack concerns?
  • How is the network growing?
• Possible future partnerships, integrations and announcements
• Zcash Foundation funding ideas
• How to contribute
  • What can non-technical people do?
  • What can programmers who are not experts in cryptocurrency or cryptography do?
  • Priorities, low-hanging fruit, needs ...

Zcash adjacent developments (other coins, markets)

• Other cryptocurrencies
  • Bitcoin dominance, bitcoin scaling debate
  • Lightning network versus BOLT, other layer-2 solutions
  • Lightning network confidentiality and its effect on Zcash
  • Zclassic, Zen, Hush, Dash, Monero, Komodo, etc ...
• Alphabay shutdown after Zcash support announcement
  • Zcash history and conspiracy theories
• Poloniex wallet problems
• What happens when Diane Feinstein and Richard Burr try to outlaw cryptography, privacy, freedom and/or Zcash?
  • What happens if Russia, China, or others try to stop Zcash. How can the network be resilient to powerful threats?

I think we easily have enough to talk about to do a monthly meet-up. If you're in the Bay Area, feel free to ping me. Maybe we can do every second Sunday of the month at around 6:30PM at the Albatross in Berkeley for a while and see how it goes.

Cheers!