Decentralizing the Dev Fee

[mhluongo]

@tromer

Zfnd would be prohibited from doing in-house development, and would need to dismantle the stellar development team that it has recently built up and trained on the Zcash internals.

No prohibition against in-house development is included in this proposal. That’s a longer-term hope for the role of the Foundation, not an immediate requirement in the draft.

Frankly, I expect resolving these issues and getting back to business will improve the price as well.

@tromer

ECC would need to cut down its expenditures from the current ~$700k/month to ~$200k/month, i.e., cease most activity.

There are a number of ways to address this. The ECC could split into two entities and net $400k / month, for example. It requires a little imagination, but using the ECC’s current burn as the sole number to optimize for here is putting the cart before the horse.

The halving is happening either way, and without a change in how things are done and the outlook for the coin, there won’t be well-funded development. We need a strong structure.

@tromer

While decentralization is important, this proposal would destroy existing capabilities in vague hope that the resources thus freed may find a better use.

To be clear, the capabilities go unfunded by default – the founder’s reward expires, and there is no replacement. This proposal certainly isn’t to destroy anything, and I’d suggest we avoid emotional language like that to get to better clarity and outcomes.

We need to design something here that will last for the next 4 years, maybe longer, that’s resilient against a number of adversaries. I don’t think easy choices and carte blanche funding will cut it.

@tromer

I have a suggestion here. You seem to have strong opinions and big plans for development work you could do if funded. Perhaps you would like to explain your own plans (technical, timeline, team, etc.) and make the case for becoming a direct Dev Fund recipient?

I’m intentionally holding off my own development proposals for a little while so we can discuss the merits of this structure – I figure this proposal shouldn’t be primarily about me or my team, and I’d rather not get into a situation where we’re designing for our needs versus the ECC or similar 0-sum thinking. I’d rather get this governance piece right.

Happy to answer questions about us as a candidate recipient, especially if they help clarify my rationale for this proposal. I just don’t want that to take the main stage until we agree about some things in principle.

EDIT:

@tromer

this proposal would defund and dismantle most of the existing Zcash development efforts :

I don’t want to go down too much of a rabbit hole, but this proposal can’t “defund” what isn’t funded. I think assuming the community will agree to “funding by default” is looking at this the wrong way. Coin holders are people who have invested their hard earned money into ZEC – assuming this doesn’t come at a cost to them and is “already ours” is a bad take.

Sorry if that was just loose language, but I want to be clear about my stance there and how I hope the ZF, ECC, and any other dev fee recipients would feel about this.