This thread is exciting; there are so many great ideas floating around.
I had some thoughts and wanted to share one possible direction:
What I outlined here is intentionally a first-draft concept exploring some ideas. Many technical and procedural details would still require thorough community discussion (voting mechanics, exact thresholds, edge cases, etc.).
The guiding idea is to respect the different strengths of each group instead of conflating roles:
• Coin holders bear the economic risk → they should set the overall grant-budget ceiling (or a narrow percentage band) for the coming year.
• ZCAP, as the group with the deepest day-to-day understanding of ecosystem needs, continues to elect the five ZCG members who allocate funds within that ceiling.
• The elected ZCG publishes a short, public one-pager with strategic priorities and evaluation criteria → clear accountability without added bureaucracy.
To avoid short-term speculation or whale dominance in the coin-holder vote, eligibility could be limited to addresses that have continuously held ZEC for at least 12–24 months – a lightweight, on-chain verifiable mechanism that requires no KYC or central registry (similar to ideas floated in the past).
Day-to-day grant operations would remain fast and unbureaucratic. Only truly exceptional opportunities that exceed the ceiling would trigger a specific, time-bound override request for coin-holder approval.
Overall, the aim is a system that is:
• simple and low-friction to implement,
• resistant to capture by short-term or concentrated interests,
• respectful of both financial risk and technical/ecosystem expertise.
Very happy to refine this further with anyone who wants to dig into the details.
Anaximander
ZCG candidate – December 2025