Dev Fund 2024: Community Poll & Discussion Megathread

@noamchom @SexDrugsAndZcash I wanted to provide some context and clarification around this question:

Zcash Community Grants (ZCG) is currently a committee under the Zcash Foundation, which custodies its funds and administers the program. The question is asking whether ZCG should become a separate legal entity that operates autonomously with its own support staff (and is possibly formally integrated into the Zcash governance process). The reason I included this question is because this topic has come up multiple times over the years: during the last dev fund discussions in 2020, after the first year of the program, and it’s been a question that’s asked to prospective ZCG candidates during the pre-election community call.

Shielded Labs is not affiliated with Zcash Community Grants.

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How does one become a member of ZCAP?

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Links:

https://zfnd.org/zcap/

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Okay, looks like a 404 error on the “expand the community Advisory Panel” link. I’ve been following Zcash since 2020. I’ve invested in the long term success of the Zcash network and I’d like to request to be part of the ZCAP. Happy to apply and go through any vetting processes.

I’m sorry, but unfortunately, this is not possible at the moment. The old-timers of the forum know that earlier there were certain attempts to capture ZCAP by a group of negatives and there was a lot of noise with these on the eve of important votes, so some protection is provided for ZCAP. At a certain point (it’s impossible to say in advance what this moment and it is also a check for activity) zcash foundation opens the ZCAP door. At that moments, the messages are loud, open and in different languages. All that is required is to follow the announcements in social networks and be able to confirm the activity in the community.

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Thanks for clarifying this, I had already raised my concerns about the notable regulatory risks that the global Zcash community deals with, by way of all of the block rewards funds resting inside of only 2 American incorporations (Zcash Foundation and Boostrap (with ECC)). In the current American crypto regulatory climate, the SEC has ample evidence to prosecute both organizations for brokering unregistered securities (the free block reward ZEC that are subsequently taken through some unknown private OTC channels and brokered into dollars)

That scenario would be devastating because there is a risk of all block reward funds being frozen, or worse. The global community of Zcash builders, investors, and advocates are beginning to speak up about how and why these risks aren’t fully vetted. In the regulatory thread, I’m still patiently waiting to hear from Bootstrap, ECC, or Zcash Foundation members who are on the risk assessment and remediation efforts.

These among other reasons are why I’ve voted to end the block reward at the upcoming halving. In doing so, there are 3-4 fewer regulatory vectors that Zcash and its core ushering organizations could be attacked from. Phasing out the block reward, and ultimately relying on Proof of Stake ZEC yield rewards is a significantly clearer solution to provide each of ZF, ECC, and ZCG with adequate self-funding capabilities. I am also in favor of chartering a core Zcash ecosystem entity outside of America, that is a no brainer.

As many others have remarked above, the price of ZEC weighs heavily on this ecosystem’s ability to comfortably self-fund for the next few years and decades. Proof of Stake will be a major improvement to aligning capital incentives with those of builders and advocates.

I’ll also make a statement of the obvious. Zcash’s “Dev Tax” as many of us pejoratively hear it spoken about, has been a PR albatross around our neck since Day 1. Setting a new confidence in the global ecosystem by phasing out the “Dev Tax” will grant similar peace of mind as was gained by the incredible protocol upgrade (Halo) that let Zcash step beyond the risks and negative PR surrounding trusted encryption parameter setups.

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For those who are opposed to the Dev Fund, i understand where you are coming from, and i agree with you on many points, but this discussion has already been had and decided years ago, and there is already a coin identical to ZEC/ZCash that has only a single difference, it already has no Dev Fund.

That coin is YEC/YCash.

If you are so staunchly opposed to the Dev Fund there is no need to create a new fork, because you can easily vote with your feet now, ahead of any decision being made, and sell all your ZEC and buy YEC. It will show up in the ZEC/YEC market pairing and will be visible for all to see. And if significant enough it will send a direct message to the ZCash community about how people feel. A vote before the vote, so to speak.

And if, as you say, it is a superior strategy to have no dev fund, YCash will be the coin/chain that wins out in the marketplace of ideas and in that future we’ll all be using YEC, not ZEC

Also, my 2c on this.

I think we should know how many of the ECC, ZF & ZCG employees/contractors/recipients have voted v those who are just ordinary ZEC holders and have no involvement in these organisations, but i don’t think it should prohibit any them from voicing their opinions and voting

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I don’t know why you quoted me, I’m in favor of the devfund, the mechanism works fine and is useful. I just don’t like that 2 recipients have unrestricted funding, controls the trademark, do politics, are centralized & have with very little accountability towards holders. Like many, I trusted them to do the right thing, but experience showed me free money corrupts.

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“Of course I like to pay people who continually never deliver while enriching their friends and themselves”.

Zcash is so on the nose, it literally means Zero Cash. As in – you will have zero cash if you invest into the project.

Don’t mix academics and money. It never works.

The community often puts too much emphasis on maintaining a positive attitude, sometimes at the cost of objective evaluation. Unfortunately, this can lead to individuals who display an excessive amount of enthusiasm about a particular project or idea becoming the dominant voices. These individuals may be compensated for their efforts, even if their contributions ultimately result in little actual progress. In some cases, this “fake enthusiasm” can be more effective in achieving recognition and rewards than genuine, substantive contributions.

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Comparing the prices of ycash and Zcash shows that you do not understand the market and background.
Hereinafter, people who purchase cryptocurrencies are referred to as consumers.

Glance at the price current price of zcash, $30+. Does the price drop all the way mean that consumers like zec?

Speaking of ycash, Ywallet, the best wallet to use now, was initially supported by ycash donations, which reflects the social effects that developers’ love can achieve.

The reason for the low price of ycash,

  1. At the beginning, Ycash was forked, and it was given to consumers who held Zcash 1:1. Therefore, people who have a lot of zcash also got a lot of Ycash. The sudden appearance of a large number of Ycash and continuous selling will inevitably lower the price.

  2. When Ycash was separated, there were still many shortcomings in the code. For example, the initial trust setting of SNark would also cause consumers not to accept it.

  3. All privacy-related coins in the market are at low prices. It can be seen that the negative impact of privacy coins is much greater than the positive ones. Consumers are tired and unwilling to support and pay attention to new privacy coins.

The objection to the development fund is not because of money. Bitcoin represents the spirit of geek cypherpunk, and Bitcoin with privacy, that is, ZEC, needs more geek cypherpunk spirit.
Here’s to hoping zcash has a compelling path to attract more supporters.

With all due respect, this sounds analogous to “If you don’t like USA Crypto policies, don’t oppose but sell your house and move to El Salvador.” Sorry, but seems as a bit too rigid attitude to me :expressionless:

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TLDR: B people bring C- people.

Well, I would say that ycash has taken quite the extreme opposite approach. Instead of having any sort of funding mechanism in place, they have completely eliminated it, relying solely on donations. Now, while I understand the desire to ensure that resources are being used in a responsible manner, I don’t think that getting rid of the devfund altogether is the answer. Rather, I believe that we should be much more selective in how those funds are utilized. In my view, accepting mediocrity and rewarding demagogy is a surefire way to attract predators who are only looking for an easy payday. So, while we need to be cautious and responsible with our resources, we also need to recognize the importance of investing in excellence if we hope to create lasting change.

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Sorry I wasn’t quoting you implying you were against the dev fund

I was quoting you in reference to your forking comment, which seemed like an odd thing to have happen again given we already have a functioning No Dev Fund fork of ZEC, being YEC

No, I was thinking to flip the whole idea of having a company and a foundation, and grant individuals through ZCG. Why do we need a company that isn’t sustainable without a devfund from a community who they aren’t accountable to ? Why do we need a foundation again ? These are the questions I’m asking.

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You know why. Follow the dollar. They all are.

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TIL: ZEC is a Rust and Swift project :exploding_head::heart:

Thanks Squirrel for this fabulous data point

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man,
The Foundation is the best place to hold Grants Money, and its their only function.
they are being monitored and everything…
if the Grants will be independent, they will have to do all of this by themselves
if we do it like Noamchom said, i sound good tho

like this it sounds a good idea, yea!

Why blockchain systems like Zcash need constant funding and full-time dedicated entities that direct, run and develop them?

  • Great endeavors can’t be ran only out of good will and spare time.
  • An economic system can’t be sustained against itself, something is valuable because people perceive that dedicating resources to does worth it.
  • a 24/7 running operation with 100% uptime can’t be sustained with sporadic, unarticulated efforts.

Also,
Self-sovereign, censorship-resistant and capture-resistant systems need to have economic sovereignty.

Regardless of recipients, this is why I believe the Dev Fund is important and why we are seeing other blockchains coming up with similar mechanisms (probably named differently) to cope with sustainability challenges and costs. I believe that removing a self funding mechanism as the dev funds is a complete mistake that would make Zcash more fragile and therefore less valuable.

Why Zcash (or any other project like it) needs a self-sovereign fund stream.

  • Zcash’s Dev Fund it’s the way to ensure people dedicated to securing, developing, maintaining and evolving Zcash devote to it full-time with no conflict of interest issues and without putting the project in a second or third (or N-th) place.
  • Zcash’s Dev Fund it’s the way to ensure: A virtuous economic system can flourish out if it, as it has been proven. Zcash participation since Dev Fund has been growing in a diverse and global form.
  • Zcash’s Dev Fund it’s the way to ensure that Zcash ecosystem is able to respond to real time events whatever their source is. Every time there time sensitive issues that menaced many blockchains, Zcash always had a team dedicated to it and responded in a timely fashion with high-standards. Without the Dev Fund this wouldn’t be possible.
  • Zcash’s Dev Fund it’s the way to ensure that operations can be reliable and trust-worthy. Daily operations can’t be ran by “grants” or “proposals” nor “committees”. Decisions have to be made on the spot, very unique and demanded human resources have to be dedicated to these operations.
  • Zcash’s Dev Fund it’s the way to ensure Zcash counts with the best professionals it can get, and those professionals are fully committed to Zcash’s benefit and success. Good will, best effort contributors can’t supply the workforce needed by continuous operations with worldwide 100% uptime. Reality won’t wait for Good Will contributors Joe or Mary to be able to put down their kids to bed, log off from work, put laundry in the washing machine and brew some coffee to work on Zcash. Full-time, globally distributed teams are needed.
  • Zcash’s Dev Fund it’s the way to ensure that Zcash can afford a worldwide community that secures the ecosystem and generates a sense of safety to its users all across the globe. Teams can be put together that work 24/7 and evolve to be up to date with state-of-the-art tech and keep the project alive and thriving in the limits of human knowledge as it currently is. Teams like these, are very demanded by the market. Other projects will capture these teams if Zcash can meet on-par retributions to labor such as career, aspirational, emotional and economical goals.
  • Zcash’s Dev Fund it’s the way to ensure that Zcash can be self-sovereign and not susceptible to capture by corporations, capitals, governments, States or other powerful entities of the geopolitical space.
  • Zcash’s Dev Fund it’s the way to ensure that Zcash can provide a long running legacy in its community were old members can be a leading case for fresh members to look up to, guaranteeing a long lasting project that runs across decades and even centuries.
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