Governance > ZCG Elections
@aaal
Thank you for this excellent question. It’s thoughtful, direct, and exactly the kind of rigorous challenge the community should demand from anyone seeking to help steward ZCG’s independent grant allocations. I’m genuinely glad you raised it.
You’re absolutely right: I’ve been actively engaged with Zcash for only about two months. But this isn’t a drawback. It’s a deliberate advantage, and it’s why I’m running specifically for the third seat, which has historically been the most open to fresh, external perspectives that complement the committee’s deep insiders and prevent echo chambers.
When I realized (through voices like Naval and Balaji) that Zcash is the only credible privacy layer built to endure the next century, I didn’t hesitate. I showed up fully committed, because privacy isn’t just technology to me; it’s the foundation of a free society. (My long-term advocacy for liberty and sound money runs deep. Feel free to check my X history for context.)
The committee already has world-class builders and protocol experts. What it needs now is a conflict-free outsider allocator whose career has been defined by rigorous capital discipline in environments of abundance: saying no to good ideas that don’t accelerate real-world adoption.
For nearly 20 years, I’ve assessed risk and designed incentives across quantitative finance, investment banking—where I routinely negotiated and executed contracts valued between $1 million and $10 million, with transactions reaching up to $100 million—the Ministry of Finance, diplomatic financial roles (including preparatory work for the Financial Stability Board during the 2008 crisis and bilateral negotiations), and today leading our family’s private investment firm in real estate development while preparing to co-lead the broader industrial manufacturing operations.
ZCG isn’t just a passive allocator. It’s the community’s independent grants program, and its highest calling is to be proactive: funding bold, forward-looking projects that wouldn’t otherwise exist, turning ideas on paper into the future of private money. Anaximander for ZCG (December 2025) - #13 by Anaximander
To win the next decade, we have to accelerate now: make Zcash the private money people actually use every day. Shield once. Spend privately forever. Zero friction.
The consumer must never have to think about privacy. It just works, invisible and faster than anything else. If private spending ever feels like extra work, we’ve already lost. Simplicity has to be the obsession.
The real engines of adoption are bottom-up: passionate local communities, developers, merchants, and businesses worldwide. ZCG’s job is to empower them with resources, trust, and space. Then get out of the way.
In practice, everything filters through one north-star metric: net shielded-spending impact (shielded-to-shielded volume + breadth of active private spenders). Projects that demonstrably move this get funded fast, with iron-clad milestones and clawbacks. (See my detailed thoughts on the metric and dashboard here and here.)
My motto: engagement and transparency. Every selection criteria, thought process, and decision rationale will be public on the forum. I’ll actively engage stakeholders to understand needs and concerns. (Transparency commitment here.)
If elected, my immediate proactive missions:
- Lead the committee in publishing a community-vetted one-pager on grant criteria and strategic priorities: forward-looking, incentive-aligned, ruthlessly focused on user adoption and simplicity. (Initial ideas on my framework here.)
- Co-lead building privacy-respecting proxies and a transparent dashboard for shielded-spending impact. So we reward only what grows private usage.
- Systematically amplify global local communities as multipliers: fund their initiatives and channel on-the-ground user feedback back to the ecosystem.
- Champion deliberate, balanced governance evolution that preserves stability, diversity, and resilience. (My thoughts here and exploratory ideas on aligning roles here and here.)
In a fast-changing ecosystem, fresh disciplined momentum from a conflict-free outsider isn’t a risk. It’s the catalyst we need to reach the next million users and make private money unstoppable.
If you believe ZCG should accelerate toward everyday private money (with simplicity, local empowerment, transparency, and unyielding focus on shielded impact), I’d be honored to earn your vote.
Open to any follow-ups here or in DMs.
Thanks again. Strong questions like yours make this community truly unstoppable.
Anaximander
ZCG Candidate – December 2025