Committee Grant #016 - Zcash Snap by ChainSafe Systems

Full Grant Size $150,000

Project Name Zcash Snap by ChainSafe Systems

Champion(s) Dan Finlay / Christian Montoya

Project Description

This project aims to add value to the Zcash ecosystem by using the MetaMask Snap framework to implement Zcash web wallet capabilities. MetaMask is the most widely used tool in Web3, and the Snap framework allows developers to extend its capabilities. Snaps can be used to add many types of features to MetaMask, but one of the most powerful categories of Snaps is referred to as “interoperability Snaps”, which allow MetaMask to interact with non-Ethereum networks. ChainSafe has created several interoperability Snaps and this experience will help with the unique challenges related to the Zcash ecosystem.

Project Goals

A Zcash Snap will allow users to create a new Zcash account from the entropy provided by the MetaMask seed phrase. Additionally, the Snap will provide access to the Zcash RPC API and implement the helper and utility functions that are required to allow users to interact with the RPC API. These capabilities will be exposed by way of a web wallet dApp front-end. This development work will be completed by the ChainSafe project team and will make use of the Snap framework provided by MetaMask.

Target Milestones

1. Design of a web wallet application
2. The implementation of a Zcash Metamask Snap
3. Implementation of a Zcash web wallet application

Timeline / Path to Production

This project is expected to take 16 weeks, which includes 14 engineering weeks to develop the Snap and dApp front-end (including unit tests and CI/CD), 1 designer week to design the dApp front-end, and 2 QA weeks for manual end-to-end testing of the Snap and dApp front-end.

About Team

Headquartered in Toronto with additional offices in Berlin and Zagreb, ChainSafe Systems is a team of over 130 skilled professionals worldwide that specializes in protocol engineering, developer tooling, research and development, web3 gaming, and interoperability. ChainSafe's has a dedicated team that is actively working on Metamask Snaps and as such developed and maintained several, such as Polkadot Snap, NearSnap, and Aleo Snap, etc. As an organization that respects privacy, our policies do not permit us to explicitly mention the specific names of individuals on the Snaps team. However, the Metamask DAO is welcome to browse our GitHub repositories for assurance that we are the right team for the job.

Funding Request

$150,000

As mentioned above, this project is expected to take 16 weeks, which includes 14 engineering weeks to develop the Snap and dApp front-end (including unit tests and CI/CD), 1 designer week to design the dApp front-end, and 2 QA weeks for manual end-to-end testing of the Snap and dApp front-end.

16 engineering weeks @ $14k p/w = $224k 1 design week @ $6k p/w = $6k 2 QA weeks $10k p/w = $20k Subtotal = $250k Total (after 40% discount) = $150k

What specific software license does the grantee intend to publish under?

Apache v2 but we are also comfortable with MIT, LGPL and GPL.

Other Information / Relevant Links / Supporting Documents

https://github.com/ChainSafe x.com/chainsafeth