Hello friends,
We want to thank the Zcash community for making its voice heard and the Zcash Foundation for stewarding the process. It’s been arduous, to say the least, but good governance is hard and we believe that the Zcash community is exhibiting a level of leadership not seen anywhere else.
We posted our intent to accept the result of the foundation’s polling here: Dev Fund poll shows consensus
We’re excited and honored by the community’s engagement and support.
(Percentages are percentage of eligible voters — 88 voters total.)
Although the petitioning that some coin holders did on the Zcash blockchain was highly contentious, we are glad to see that their calls were largely consistent with the sentiment gathered by the foundation. We maintain that coin holders’ voices are important and wish to continue to elevate them as best as we are able.
(Percentages are percentage of ZEC coins anonymously staked — 104,066 ZEC total.)
There is one issue outstanding — that of the governance of major grants. We expect the Zcash Foundation will lay a path forward for reconciling the split vote and trust that they will steward that process well.
While the petitioning that some of the coin holders did on the blockchain was not planned and was non-binding, coin holders who did participate signaled strongly that they prefer a new and independent Major Grant Review Committee. The governance over the Major Grants did not receive the same level of community debate as the other elements and all participants may not have had the same information to reason through pros and cons of each option.
It is our opinion that it would be better for Zcash if the community establishes a Major Grant Review Committee as an independent third party rather than as a Zcash Foundation stewarded committee. This opinion is rooted in a belief that this would provide further decentralization and increased inclusivity for Zcash.
An independent third party would further decentralize decision-making for the Zcash community by adding another entity that is independent of both the Zcash Foundation and ECC, who jointly steward the trademark.
Additionally, no single entity would have control (directly or indirectly) of greater than 50% of the development funds. A new body would be an important signal and likely to encourage new entrants who are free to reason and support a broader group of Zcashers without any tie to the Zcash Foundation or ECC.
While we are comfortable supporting either path the community chooses, we believe this issue should be considered with care by this community.