Polling is now open! Please read these instructions carefully.
Overview
This poll is intended to gauge coinholder sentiment on a set of proposed Zcash protocol features and initiatives. It includes 11 questions, each focused on a specific proposal that is either completed or expected to be ready within the next year. The goal is to better understand where there is alignment, uncertainty, or divergence in sentiment across the ecosystem.
Participants are encouraged to take their time when responding. We recommend reviewing the relevant proposals, discussing them with others, and making informed, thoughtful decisions. For each question, there are two options: support or oppose. If you wish to abstain on a particular question, simply skip that question. The poll will remain open until Friday, February 20 at 8:00pm UTC. If it becomes clear that additional time is needed for review or discussion, the polling period may be extended.
To help respondents make informed decisions when participating in the poll, background information and relevant forum discussions for each question are available at the following link:
This poll is one of several taking place in parallel, all asking the same questions. Responses will be collected across multiple groups, including coinholders, ZCAP, and various engineering and community panels. Once polling concludes, results will be compared across all groups to assess whether there is clear, broad consensus. Individual poll results are advisory and non-binding on their own and are evaluated together with all other poll results to assess whether there is clear consensus. If results are close or unclear, the organizers may run additional polling or a follow-up round to better understand community sentiment.
Voting With Shielded ZEC
Your full voting power is available for each question, meaning you can use the same amount of voting power on multiple questions. Seeing “0 remaining voting power” after casting a vote only applies to that individual question and does not limit your ability to vote on others.
You can download the app to vote shielded ZEC here:
Please note that there is a separate “zecvote.zone” URL for each question.
Q1: What is your general sentiment toward including Zcash Shielded Assets (ZSAs) as a protocol feature?
https://zecvote.zone/election/d7281580b01f8d1d056b52965397a63895ac491538d49ae9a9bbb4458271f701
Q2: What is your general sentiment toward adding protocol support for the Network Sustainability Mechanism (NSM), including smoothing the issuance curve, which allows ZEC to be removed from circulation and later reissued as future block rewards to help sustain network security while preserving the 21 million ZEC supply cap?
https://zecvote.zone/election/8f01a2ca0af8e088637dfde26524180bcb48e5ed5f7fb6410cfe2a385b269706
Q3: What is your general sentiment toward burning 60% of transaction fees via the Network Sustainability Mechanism (NSM)? The goals are to demonstrate Zcash’s commitment to long-term sustainability, to burn ZEC so that it can be re-issued in the future without exceeding the 21M supply cap, and in the context of dynamic fees, to prevent miners from manipulating fees.
https://zecvote.zone/election/b4e3b9a1008483ea68d8fb2abb4f8e6987e870d20fca410f3edae8ca8362d00e
Q4: What is your general sentiment toward including Memo Bundles, which let transactions include memos larger than 512 bytes and share a memo across multiple recipients, and also permits inclusion of authenticated reply-to addresses, as a protocol feature?
https://zecvote.zone/election/626452804795e079e8a43cb42183a38c55ad45d59bfe30c90478d8c660452308
Q5: What is your general sentiment toward adding protocol support to enable Explicit Fees, allowing transaction fees to be clearly specified and committed to in the transaction?
https://zecvote.zone/election/e3ac5600cf85c4e2dd82e53cf9f05975052a9779325c0e43305b6ab7cb592101
Q6: What is your general sentiment toward reducing the complexity and attack surface of the Zcash protocol by disallowing v4 transactions? This would disable the ability to spend Sprout funds, for which there will be no wallet support in any case after the prior deprecation of zcashd.
https://zecvote.zone/election/1d075a9b9e0b53072efebff331722d99a74bc7f21b6d26f0600d47d377a67e2b
Q7: What is your general sentiment toward deploying a new shielded protocol or pool to address scalability challenges as part of Project Tachyon?
https://zecvote.zone/election/340534dc1a42a2faef9fe57ecff609526d8433e5e9a9f6feac6d09fe1f0d5d2d
Q8: What is your general sentiment toward adding protocol support for STARK proof verification via Transparent Zcash Extensions (TZEs) to enable Layer-2 designs on Zcash?
https://zecvote.zone/election/89a963d3ea444af7af7460b5c9f6c1aff5b4dc6cbd9b4356f9ef24591fcef626
Q9: What is your general sentiment toward adding protocol support for a comparable-based, dynamic fee mechanism?
https://zecvote.zone/election/a816627d9b7c36116c150d2e80cbda64c616556733cbdeeaf6572db849405335
Q10: What is your general sentiment toward adding protocol support for consensus accounts, which generalize the functionality of the dev fund lockbox and reduce the operational expense of collecting ZCG funds and miner rewards?
https://zecvote.zone/election/b94cacd2a847e2996048b9371a4b4eb989decd8cfa0d3ebb06d0bb6527eb7c3f
Q11: What is your general sentiment toward “Orchard quantum recoverability”, which aims to ensure that if the security of elliptic curve-based cryptography came into doubt (due to the emergence of a cryptographically relevant quantum computer or otherwise), then new Orchard funds could remain recoverable by a later protocol — as opposed to having to be burnt in order to avoid an unbounded balance violation?
https://zecvote.zone/election/7fa15c2d77bb5b1ad3bec984d95bd5a61954494d6cba2cc2c71a3d85aec0963e
For the desktop app, follow these steps to cast your vote:
- Open the voting app.
- Click “New” to start voting in a new election.
- Enter the election URL and your seed phrase.
- Select “Internal Wallet,” if applicable.
- Save the election file when prompted.
- Click “Download Blockchain Data.” Once it finishes processing, your voting power should appear.
- Go to the “Vote” tab, select your choice, and enter the number of votes you want to cast.
- You should see a confirmation message once your vote has been successfully submitted.
On average, each vote takes about three minutes to process before you receive a confirmation.
If you’d prefer to delegate your vote to ZecHub, you can use the following address:
zvote1vqx5jlku3ukhl6vx95mutmvzq7y7gg9s84pcv4undts99jleyqlm5craxfw4j6xj0uqc2ps06ps
A couple important things to remember:
First, the safest way to participate now that the registration period has ended is to move the ZEC out of the wallet you’re using to vote. That way, when you enter the seed phrase to vote, the wallet will be empty, eliminating any risk of losing funds.
Second, when you create a new election, you’ll see a switch for “Internal Wallet” that allows the app to scan for funds stored in internal accounts, like those used by Zashi, Edge, eZcash, and other wallets that follow ZIP 316. This is to address an issue where users of these wallets did not see their full balance available to vote. If you hold ZEC in both internal and external accounts, you’ll need to cast your vote twice: once with the switch turned on, and once with it turned off.
Please use this thread to let us know if you run into any issues or to provide feedback on the overall process and user experience.
Voting With Transparent ZEC
If you want to vote ZEC held in a transparent address, follow the instructions and example outlined by @outgoing.doze:
Orchard Address:
u1lj9s8h3qz6su9gztwrpnw5mnsvfdeklgrn070j9ss9l8f2qpuhpsx2d5347qg30wkja2lzxjyhlc00gcxx2a690zl27qg5axagphf3s7
View Key:
uview1t2k9exue8kglrz7ue3f4skqy96qwdvmq3a3gs9l44nvjkh9fp8443e899let73m9wlp3uzumzsa26dtj96swws3kxaqnl4h3l8rafysn7mzffdlsdaeqjh3f8fjgq2xwr9vuuara0l8yqa75nvu6cdw46u0tear84pj6hz4y6jqhex358pn4vxrhpy0s93tn9hqxmfj2urnmpuuzs55hgwcxfu9nt6zscvev43yxm0lr8luxpdu8wx6gq8hprwl24eg8ktgmjyn5sf5mm3uy46cwvpru536u6wyle9u2t5p4qyjp4xpzrpqk8e3z9snf4e45nkatfphe8t4wvav6gktu0d6knzmdy8xnud8llh87xeuw3ltftcxlwjexvqdcr0fjreqgujzf9
Birthday Height:
3,221,100
Note: Funds cannot be moved during the voting period, which runs until Friday, February 20, at 8PM UTC.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Am I eligible to participate?
To be eligible to participate, you must have moved ZEC into the Orchard pool or refreshed your notes during the registration period that ran from Block 2,978,050, which occurred on July 1, 2025, to Block 3,218,812, which occurred on January 26 around 11:59 PM UTC.
Why is there a registration period?
The registration period exists because it would be too computationally intensive to scan every Orchard note ever created. “Proof of balance” relies on the halo2 circuit, which, like Orchard itself, requires the wallet to compute witness data. Allowing participation from all Orchard notes since inception would mean downloading and processing the entire chain, which involves several gigabytes of data and would be impractical for most users. Limiting it to a registration window keeps the process efficient and accessible.
What is the recommended approach for registering and voting?
To participate, coinholders need to move their ZEC into the Orchard pool or refresh their notes (by sending an Orchard transaction to themselves) during the registration window. Once the registration deadline passes, they will be able to cast their vote.
The safest approach is to move the ZEC out of the wallet you used for registration once the window has closed. This way, when you later use the seed phrase to vote, the wallet will be empty, removing any risk of accidentally losing funds while still allowing your vote to be counted.
Is there a minimum amount of ZEC needed to vote?
Yes, you’ll need at least 0.01 ZEC to vote.
Can you provide an overview of the election process?
The Coin Voting 2.0 application differs from the previous voting system that was integrated into YWallet. This is a standalone application that is not currently integrated into any wallet, meaning users will need to download it separately. Each election consists of four steps: creation, hosting, voting, and auditing. The creator defines the vote parameters, including the question, answers, and eligible block range. The host runs the election logistics, providing a trustless online service for voters to submit ballots. Voters participate using their Orchard funds, with the option to delegate votes. Finally, auditors verify the results once the election concludes by using a revealed seed phrase to validate the ballots and report the final counts.
Is Coin Voting 2.0 safe to use?
Yes. The current recommended process is to generate a fresh seed phrase, move funds into that wallet during the registration window, keep them there until registration closes, and then move them out before voting. The seed phrase used for voting should not be reused for any other purpose, but the voting process itself never reveals the seed. In addition, Coin Voting 2.0 has undergone an independent security audit by Least Authority. Long term, the goal is to integrate voting directly into widely used wallets, making participation more seamless, secure, and accessible for all users.
Where can I download the Coin Voting 2.0 app?
Is there a demo or walkthrough that explains how the voting process works?
Yes, check out this video explainer from @dismad of ZecHub:
Are there any technical resources available for those who want to understand how the application works under the hood?
Here are a couple resources that explain how the mechanism works:
Why does the app show more votes than the amount of ZEC I hold?
In the Coin Voting 2.0 system, the number of votes you receive corresponds directly to the amount of ZEC you hold. The system is designed to assign votes in whole numbers by multiplying your ZEC balance by 1,000. So, if you have 10 ZEC, you receive 10,000 votes. This approach makes vote counting and display simpler, while still preserving the proportional relationship between holdings and voting power.
Is it possible for the voting authority to manipulate votes?
The Coin Voting 2.0 system is designed to be secure and tamper-resistant, but like any system, it depends on how it’s deployed. Votes are submitted to a dedicated voting blockchain that runs using the CometBFT consensus engine. This blockchain is maintained by a set of validators, which are called voting authorities.
If there’s only one validator, a malicious operator could suppress or selectively include votes. However, when deployed with at least four independent validators, the system becomes resistant to manipulation—as long as two-thirds of them are honest, no single party can control the outcome. This approach ensures that votes are collected and finalized through a consensus mechanism, rather than relying on a centralized server.
How many voting authorities are there for this poll?
There are six voting authorities for this poll: @hanh, @dismad, @judah, @alchemydc, Y and @james_katz.