This is an excellent question. Most discussion so far has focused on the funding mechanism, but it is very legitimate to also bring up the matter of what will be funded.
ECC has stated that they
advocate for a coarse-grained allocation . For example: “ We will focus on accomplishing x big goal for y ZEC over z years. ”
and made this concrete as follows:
at least four years is reasonable for attracting and retaining the talent needed and to accomplish horizontal scalability, work toward broad interoperability and drive this next phase of adoption to the early majority.
There was related discussion in the Zcash to 10 billion and ECC: All in on ZEC blog posts.
My personal opinion is that this list of goals deserves an open discussion, and it is reasonable for the social contract constructed around the Dev Fund to address what goals should be pursued by recipients of the Dev Fund.
Also, my personal opinion is that the top priority for the Zcash ecosystem, and by extension for use of the Dev Fund, should be usability and adoption of fully-shielded transactions. On the tech side, this includes:
- Easy-to-use and secure lightweight wallets, for all major mobile and desktop platforms.
- Integration into third-party software and platforms at all scales (from major exchanges to budding open-source projects). This includes feature-complete and officially supported SDKs, packaging, and develper handholding.
- Requisite new functionality such as selective disclosure (for dispute resolution and auditing) and shielded multisig (for, e.g., secure custody).
It doesn’t mean ECC should do all of the above by itself, and it doesn’t mean these are the only things ECC should do. But we, as the community, need to wrap our head around how those things get to happen, and make sure the Dev Fund social contract supports that well.