It should be filled by the same way everyone defines community. Its very ironic that ZEC holders are always absent from discussions about community, governance, etc… Yet they fund the dev fund. So, I believe if there is not a dev fund, the orgs have really already answered the question of funding in the way they define community for developing consensus. It’s the people who make up the “consensus” who should be funding the dev fund. If this feels a little amorphous, unpredictable, and unreliable as a means of funding, it is. And, that is also how a lot of us feel about the concept of consensus as a means of governance.
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it all comes back to coin voting, we need that ASAP
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This is the way.
This process worked well last time and allowed users to dive deeper into the pros/cons of each ZIP. A draft ZIP doesn’t have to be perfect but it at least sets up the baseline idea and allowed for good revisions and feedback.
There are two important parts for the funding and one important part if dev fund is approved.
Part 1 - the allocation and splits
Part 2 - the requirements a) prefund critical projects b) blank check funding. Or, alternatively define the development orgs have to do and spending orgs can not do.
Part 3 - governance a) consensus vs b) coin weighted voting.
I personally dont want to see any dev funding if consensus is used as a governance mechanism. I would rather have coin weighted voting for the org BOD and then its up to the board of directors of each org to control and ensure funds are spent wisely. I think we have seen the consensus method was abused in the past. (the board should be independent of the development team and provide oversight functions for ZEC holders).
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While I understand your concerns about “free money” and its potential to distort incentives, I believe the core issue lies in the lack of robust governance and accountability measures within our current system. Rather than focusing solely on reducing the funding allocation, I advocate we prioritize strengthening governance mechanisms that empower the community to:
- Redirect funding dynamically: Flexible governance structures should enable the community to adjust funding to ZCG, ECC, ZF, and potentially new recipients according to evolving priorities. Effective governance means the community has the agency to support what’s working and address areas for improvement.
- Establish a record of effective fund utilization: Transparent, results-oriented governance will bolster Zcash’s reputation, attracting more potential development fund recipients. This creates healthy competition and encourages all recipients to perform optimally.
- Demand accountability with measurable metrics: We need clear performance metrics and reporting standards tied to funding. This allows the community to make informed decisions about resource allocation.
The focus shouldn’t be on limiting development funds but rather on empowering the community to ensure their effective and strategic use. A strong governance model fosters better decision-making and accountability, regardless of the funding level.
Regarding the NU6 contract and restrictions on recipient investment strategies, I believe that robust governance systems can address such concerns. A community-driven governance approach allows for nuanced decision-making on a case-by-case basis, taking into account how a recipient aligns themselves within the wider cryptocurrency space.
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Maybe the Foundation should transition to more of a governance and oversight function to act more as a fiduciary for ZEC Holders, while
- ECC focuses more on Zashi and Zcash protocol, (focus more on equivalent of L1 and wallet)
- ZCG focuses on ledger/trezor/DEX/Metamask/integration into other important third party independently funded projects (we should not be funding greenfield type projects where ZCG is acting like a venture fund. Integrations only with proven funded projects).
- Qedit focuses on assets and fees such as ZSA, Stablecoins, and developing a fee based gas structure to encourage third party development on the Zcash blockchain as well as providing gas/fees for Zcash blockchain to help transition away from inflationary funding. (focus mor on the L2 or equivanent with clear paths to self funding upon gas/fee structure)
Below is a rough depiction with related placeholder block reward allocations.
Going forward, we have a much more focused approach to using block rewards to prefund (and fully fund) critical blockchain development. And we also define what block rewards can not be used for.
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do u have twitter, if so what is it. Id like to follow
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Thanks for the highly political response (I don’t think you used a lot of AI to create it), but I can understand why other readers might think that you leveraged an AI engine to create your response.
My questions were direct! I’m sure that you can share your personal feelings about these topics as one of the ZCG leaders.
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I disagree with creating inflexible rules in the dev fund ZIP. Active community governance is more effective because it allows us to assess how recipients use funds and adjust future allocations accordingly. This creates ongoing accountability.
I support a larger ZEC allocation for the ECC, ZF, and ZCG because I believe in their net benefit to Zcash, even considering past shortcomings. The right governance structures and a declining funding model are essential. We need to give these groups the resources to deliver, with clear expectations and oversight. Blindly cutting funding limits potential improvement.
Yes. Sustainable funding is crucial to prevent Zcash from stagnating, as minimal resources make meaningful progress impossible. My proposal isn’t merely about ZEC’s price it’s also about empowering core development teams to deliver real improvements and grow the Zcash ecosystem.
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Coming from who? And where? I’m not opposed to a dev fund continuance, but what I am opposed to is this sort of magic hand-waving that everything will be willy-nilly and work out 
since the ECC and Foundation have been at odds with each other for years. Who really is on first? Who is running the show? The structure isn’t clear.
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@pkr there is no hand waving, I strongly believe if the community establish working governance ECC and ZF would be forced to respect and act on the “Clear Consensus of the Zcash community” as stated in the Zcash trademark agreement.
I believe this governance should be in the following form. Keep in mind systems coin weighted voting were not funded before I posted this. I strongly believe coin weighted voting should be included in consensus gathering.
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Just to clarify, this approach does require a circuit change: when I refer to reading the value from, or writing it to, an Orchard note, that is in the circuit statement. This scheme is simpler than requiring additional transactions, but it would require significant analysis in terms of both circuit security and economic effects, which I believe is probably not feasible in the planned NU6 timeframe.
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~2024.11
Miners 80%
ZCG 8%
Bootstrap 7%
ZF 5%
2024.11~
Miners 70%
ZCG 6%
Bootstrap 14%
ZF 10%
- It is miner funding that maintains the Zcash ecosystem and security, and miner funding should not be significantly reduced. If we move to Proof of Stake, there will be more miners, and the number of Zcash paid to them will continue to decrease, so I don’t want to see a significant decrease in miner funding.
- Bootstrap, ZF will be allocated the same number of ZEC as before. They will have a lot of work to do over the next four years, including ZSA and Zebra, Proof of Stake transition, and more.
- The ZCG committee is not an ongoing group, the members change every year and new people vet and run the fund, so there is no reason to hold someone accountable for the use of the funds. Therefore, I believe that the ZCG is currently running too many funds. The ZCG should be an integral part of the Zcash ecosystem and is doing a lot for Zcash, but I think some of the funds are being wasted. Therefore, I propose a 6% ZCG fund.
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@AidenZ Your proposal should be given a separate thread so it can be discussed and made into a ZIP, similar to what GGuy is doing above.
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@GGuy Iicymi, in this cool interview with @joshs, he agreed that Zcash has a problem with misaligned incentives.
I think this proposal is certainly well-intentioned, but it exacerbates the problem of misaligned incentives in a literally critical way. Without careful modeling that is not available to me or you this is a colossal risk to the viability of Zcash. This market is not ready for charity for science, but it can favor projects where there is a balance of interests. The problem is not even that the misalignment of interests is exacerbated, with this proposal it is exacerbated significantly. And this trend is towards monopolization of management. This vector will not interest retail investors, much less users. The right privacy model involves holding ZEC as a store of value for a long time. But I now know in practice that this value cannot be retained, that I made a monumental mistake leaving my ZEC balance sheet counting on the innovation potential. I think most investors are of the same opinion. This proposal tells me that the skew will be even more significant. Our developers will continue to make source code programs, other developers will continue to say thank you to the Zcash community, only investors will be left with their own problems.
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@artkor, I appreciate your thoughtful feedback. I want to clarify the intentions behind my Zcash funding proposal and address the concern about it potentially becoming a charity.
Projected Costs vs. Proposed Funding
My initial estimate of $59 million over 5 years was focused on ambitious goals, including:
- Proof-of-Stake implementation and scalability research
- Regulatory clarity and partnerships
- Native applications, wallets, and developer tools
- ZSA expansion
- Website revamp and targeted marketing
- Strong community collaboration initiatives
- Enhanced privacy with trial decryption reduction
- ECC and ZF administrative support
My dev fund proposal, factoring in a gradual ZEC price increase ($30-$120), funds ~$36 million over the 4 years post-halving. This is significantly below the initial estimate. But importantly this proposal attempts to better align and incentivise dev fund recipients by introducing:
- A declining funding schedule to promote efficiency
- Improved governance for accountable spending
My goal is not endless funding, but to kickstart the development for the next 4 years. @artkor, I respect your concerns. Do you have alternative solutions for Zcash’s funding challenges?
I understand and applaud all of that. But this proposal violates incentives and could bury the Zcash project. Let me outline one of the likely scenarios that arises if the incentives are changed and that is modeled by myself. Miners are being offered 40%. That said, the ZEN neighbor is already 1/2 ZEC in price as it was at the peak of the 2021/22 bull cycle. This means that in the next rally, the price of ZEN will overlap the price of ZEC altogether. I’ll note that ZEN has no funds and has been on a hybrid PoS scheme since 2018. And even lost screened pools. But miners don’t care about all this nonsense. Miners will rush to where the money pays. Next, the Zcash hashrate will see an even bleaker look and an even worse distribution. Taking over the network with a 51% attack will be possible for fun, but will likely be economically feasible with the advent of ZSAs and third party assets on the circuit. Negative tabloid news will rain down on us like a cornucopia. And the price will rush to where you didn’t plan to see it. Heads of structures will come out, wave their hands and say that the market killed our project. It’s already happened with a lot of super cool projects that were overly obsessed with the cost part, less so with marketing and believed in their exclusive mission so blindly that they ignored the threats.
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I agree with you. We only have to go to X to see that. The image, the perception of Zcash right now is getting worse. We have to look outward. As a longtime Zcash supporter, I am also very worried about the situation. I’m a Korean ambassador, and I have a total of 340 holders on Korean social media right now, and the community is seriously being ruined by issue of the Dev Fund. I think the Dev Fund is essential, but raising the ratio from the current one will not only make Zcash holders more angry, but it will also fail to defend the price and make it harder to secure funding than it is now.
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