This is @sproxet’s interview.
Firo-chan Yap, [20/5/2022 2:15 PM]
Hello Sproxet and thank you for nominating yourself to the CFC! We’re doing this interview as an informal ‘get to know you’ session to the rest of the Firo community and to get your views on several aspects of the project. 
Firo-chan Yap, [20/5/2022 2:16 PM]
You’ve been one of the earliest community members of Firo/Zcoin and it’s definitely been a wild ride. What has kept you involved in the project?
@praxit, [20/5/2022 2:25 PM]
I’ve always been interested in privacy technologies, and private payments are an integral part of that. Generally in this area, I don’t think privacy solutions that use payments with low anonymity sets are really contenders here for what I’d like to see, because I don’t think the protections they offer are sufficient to deter the adversaries most people are worried about (ie. Chainalysis and the governments and companies that buy their data).
So given that, I’ve seen only two technologies that really provide protection, namely the One-Of-Many proof ones (Zerocoin, Sigma, Lelantus, Spark), and the ZK-Snarks based ones (Zcash, Tornado). Zcoin was the first project that got into this space, and I was very excited about it at the time, as I remember seeing the Zerocoin whitepaper as something revolutionary. And then over the years I’ve just stayed attached to our project, community, and the tech we use.
Firo-chan Yap, [20/5/2022 2:27 PM]
What are your thoughts on Lelantus Spark in particular? Especially vs things like Orchard/Halo2?
@praxit, [20/5/2022 2:29 PM]
Both technologies do pretty similar things with different approaches. I think Spark lets us get a lot of really cool functionality, and Orchard provides Zcash with pretty similar functionality. They’re two different ways to acheive the same thing, more or less.
Firo-chan Yap, [20/5/2022 2:30 PM]
Now you’ve been working with Firo/Zcoin on and off on a part time basis as a contractor and have contributed significantly to the Electron Firo-Client. As you are aware the CFC is meant to be independent of the core team.
How has your interactions with the core team been like and how do you think it affects your independence?
@praxit, [20/5/2022 2:33 PM]
I definitely have some connection to the core team, but I think my analysis of technical issues would not be affected by any sort of emotional attachment I might have. I’ve been involved with technology for quite a long time, and have enough experience that I can deliver a sober analysis regardless of any external factors.
Firo-chan Yap, [20/5/2022 2:34 PM]
Sure though the CFC is not just about technical issues but about how the fund should be utilized, some which may be technical, others not so.
@praxit, [20/5/2022 2:37 PM]
I feel I can weigh the interests of the community appropriately, having been involved with it for so long. I fully want Firo to succeed, and for that we need a vibrant community.
Firo-chan Yap, [20/5/2022 2:38 PM]
What is your opinion on the community fund in general? Like the governance of it and the eventual move to a community matching fund. Or should we even have a community fund at all? There’s been some criticisms that most community funds in other projects generally aren’t utilized well.
@praxit, [20/5/2022 2:43 PM]
I think it’s definitely true that in many cryptocurrency projects, community funds just descend into nepotism, or are nepotistic from the get go. It’s a difficult issue, because in reality people in the space do know each other. I think it’s important to have community outreach and be open to projects from outside our own circle, while maintaining a high standard as to which projects are approved. Those aren’t always easy things to balance. Overall I’d say the success of the community fund depends on the success of the community in general: are motivated and competent people in the community going to be attracted to produce stuff for Firo? That’s not something we can accurately predict without trying.
Firo-chan Yap, [20/5/2022 2:44 PM]
I agree It’s a bit of a chicken and egg scenario and I think it’s a worthy experiment.
Firo-chan Yap, [20/5/2022 2:45 PM]
What sort of things would you like to see funded with the CFC? Anything specific?
@praxit, [20/5/2022 2:48 PM]
Integrations with our core products are somewhat difficult, due to the amount of coordination required with the core team. I think for the community fund, the best projects are those that have a greater degree of freedom than things that have to be part of our direct codebase. Some examples of this might be Firo-related utility bots (tipbots, price feeds, etc), integration into existing multi-coin software projects, commissioned artwork and NFT projects, etc.
Firo-chan Yap, [20/5/2022 2:50 PM]
What about community building or adoption drives? Or ‘marketing’? A lot of people think that Firo’s biggest drawback is the lack of marketing.
@praxit, [20/5/2022 2:54 PM]
Firo’s definitely not doing great in the marketing departement. So much of the crypto space seems driven by memes, and as someone who evaluates projects primarily by their whitepapers it’s difficult for me to understand how these will affect the development and future of Firo. I’d like to see more community building and adoption of course, so I’d be interested to see such proposals. Hopefully the community can come up with interesting ideas.
Firo-chan Yap, [20/5/2022 2:55 PM]
That’s fair While not a CFC responsibility, what is your opinion on the latest way to vote for CFC members requiring proof of participation or proof of contribution towards the project?
@praxit, [20/5/2022 2:58 PM]
Reputation systems are a really, really hard problem. 
I’d say just authorise users who are known in the community. A more generalised solution is an unsolved problem.
Firo-chan Yap, [20/5/2022 2:59 PM]
Yeah it’s tough esp since requiring KYC would be against the ethos of a privacy project. Any views on masternode voting?
@praxit, [20/5/2022 3:00 PM]
Coin voting is by definition plutocracy. The problems with that are well documented. Though so are the flaws of one person one vote.
Firo-chan Yap, [20/5/2022 3:02 PM]
Well I don’t have any other questions! Any final thoughts before we wrap things up?
@praxit, [20/5/2022 3:02 PM]
KYC is also easy to bypass. You can easily get physical proxies to register.
@praxit, [20/5/2022 3:03 PM]
Not really. I hope everyone has a better idea of who I am and whether or not they feel I’d be a good addition to the community fund committee. Great to talk with you today!