Is it legally acceptable for the foundation to run a zcash mining pool where the pool fee goes to the dev fund?
It is something the foundation would consider?
It would also help bolster against 51% attacks, if the foundation is not going to 51% zcash.
Just thinking out loud.
@ChileBob do you think this could be done? if the foundation are interested are you up for putting something together? I am more than willing to help.
For funding it’s an interesting good idea for sure, for power split and decentralization it’s mostly a bad idea…
It could be done, but it’d be classed as a business activity & not sure they want to get into that.
There’s various pool servers to choose from that’re way better than my ugly hack, but yeah, I would help if they needed it.
Why do you see an issue with power? It wouldn’t grant the foundation any extra powers that I can see. Id like to hear more on what you think on this if you have time.
I don’t see how it impacts decentralization. it is another pool to use.
Is it any worse than nanopool, or antpool? There is less chance of collusion between a foundation run pool with another pool than two independent pools.
it is a bit like the forum in my mind.
Would it though? I am not a lawyer and certainly don’t pretend to be one on the internet (not saying you are!) but I know in the UK a non profit can run a business to generate money for the non profit. as long as they don’t make a profit 
- I don’t see it as different to accepting a donation from block distribution. Maybe it could go to the non ecc and non foundation grants system.
They developed with parity.
Maybe, but I like ugly hacks - and you are in a much better position to assess pool software than anyone else i know on the forum that engages regularly. I also imagine youd have some idea of the costs.
I also wanted to ask you if I could look at your perl code for the pool too please. (I bow to your knowledge of it being a business activity, still interested if its an option though.) - they could do things like only z2z payouts, etc. or maybe fund a grant for a 3rd party to do it for them.
I’ll upload & PM you a link when I get back home. (Done)
In my opinion, i admit i didn’t think further about it, just a fast comment, it would be an act against decentralization and a power shift.
Against decentralization as hashing power is allocated towards an entity that should not control everything, including hashpower. As you said your own, antpool, flypool and others are independet from ECC or Foundation.
In the meaning of power shift, let’s assume that miningpool gets for some reason 50+% of the network hashrate. That would be a huge power shifting in my opinon. In theory the Foundation could block than any upgrade there own, at least temporary.
Another thought about power. A mining pool can censor transactions and whatever not, another reason why such shift would add more power to the ZF if it’s a successfull mining pool.
Don’t get me wrong, i personally would have 0 problems with that, but others may see that totally differently. I mean if you go as far as making a mining pool, why not adding a mining farm as well?
I personally even like the idea as i think the mining pools are the most useless ones in the whole network and make a good % of income buy literallly not investing anything. I don’t like that middleman design with miningpools in general but that’s just my opinion.
Maybe the mining pool would fit the 3rd, 4th or 5th entity better?
About the business aspect mentioned by Bob, i think this could be done around as a non-lawyer. In princip i as well don’t see much difference than a mandatory block reward going to the ZF, absolutly the same in my opinion.
Theoretically yes ZF could run a mining pool, and the idea has been tossed around in the past. In practice, it would be fatal to our focus as an organization. A mining pool is a whole full-time business.
A thought… you might want to run a mining ‘proxy server’, it would let ZFnd collect information from miners (ie: votes!!! sentiment!!!) & you could direct the hashpower to favoured pools (ie: ones that mine to zaddrs).
Edit: Wouldn’t be a business activity as the pools would be paying the miners direct
This should be an absolute no-go, it would be as well devasting in my opinion.
You don’t need to focus your attention on it tho.
Mining pools make money. I don’t understand the 501 3c or whatever rules, but you could pay someone to do it for you.
On a technical level, excellent idea. in practice I think boxalex is right. still keep them thoughts coming. I like them.