All solid proposals worthy of consideration in my opinion. The question is how can we eliminate the noise in each and simplify it in such a way that’s easily understandable and evaluated by the average community member. I think this is key so the majority are able to make an informed decision when the time comes.
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You nailed it. verbose enough, but not too much.
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Do you mean, during this call?
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Yes! my response above would be for continuation around the 1:08:00 mark, where my connection dropped 
/conversation continued on to other topics needing to be covered.
Thanks @noamchom for the feedback. Like this if you agree with @noamchom that timelines are a major issue for my proposal.
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As Josh also has, here are some continuing suggestions to my original proposal.
Both the ECC and Shielded Labs have indicated no interest in being directly coded receivers of future block rewards. Johnathan at Qedit expressed interest, however also isn’t interested in direct/ wallet coded distribution. He/ I are in a general agreement that if the ecosystem wants Qedit on retainer via new block rewards, that ideally Zcash Foundation would act as the direct recipient/ and then act as the distributor of those ZEC to Qedit.
In order to retain the 15% block reward total that I support most, I’m suggesting that the original 4% ECC and 1% Shielded Labs, go instead as 3% to ZF and 2% to ZCG.
This now unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) creates a situation where Zcash Foundation would be the only organization with a wallet coded directly into the protocol for block rewards. The additional 3% for ZF should be earmarked primarily to ZF’s Major/ Minor grants program.
This degree of block rewards centralization puts even heavier faith in the corporate/ legal/ governance resources at the ZF, so at some point I hope @Dodger has time to share his thoughts about the recommendation.
I don’t believe that it is in Zcash’s best interest to further govern/ managerialize (going into a grants only model) the activities of the many development teams who are now here supporting the project, and who are already struggling to build synergy/ efficiencies among themselves. The teams/ researchers/ engineers/ infrastructure efforts are already carrying enough on their shoulders (all of the teams that I recommended for direct block subsidy have easily enough detailed work in their roadmaps to keep busy for 3-4 years), in my opinion, there just is not a strong enough case (right now) to be made here, to add even more work (the process of authoring grant proposals/ deliberating on which team is approved for what scope, cost negotiations, in-flight grant evaluation, et al… the sort of stuff that we’re seeing right now with Zcash Media).
Again, I love the concept of Zcash as grants only, but I don’t believe that the project teams/ ecosystem governors are ready yet, nor is it reasonable to think that we can create a deployable solution for a grants only model in 12 months.
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I don’t understand this - if ZF is holding ZEC, how can they use ZEC to buy back ZEC?
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Definitely “unfortunately”.
I would suggest that @FPF act as a the direct recipient of QEDIT’s allocation.
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Very good point, LOL! At face value the logic doesn’t add up.
My intention there was to suggest that more ZEC would allow for ZF to potentially avoid having to continually hedge further into USD to cover for existing liabilities. My understanding is that there is some hypothetical max ZEC holdings amt on their balance sheet, where no additional hedging (selling) into USD would be needed, regardless of the size of current/ future liabilities, or current USD holdings. Because the ZEC could be paid directly against liabilites, without having first getting hedged into USD, then back into ZEC at point of transaction.
I’m pulling out that line anyway based on your feedback, my proposal intends simplicity so the extra ZEC can be up to the ZF’s discretion.
I think know why you feel this way, and I don’t disagree that the optics here look unfortunate (i.e. economic centralization/ reliance on ZF’s discretion, legal/ regulatory strength, et al).
I’d only make these counter points. With my proposal, the amount of ZEC going into ZF is only about 2% higher than what ZF is receiving today in terms of ZEC as % reward per block.
The number of coins emitted/ received daily becomes quite lower than what ZF receives today, because of the halving impact and the austerity built into my proposal.
As a receiver of 15% via Manufacturing Consent (post 2024 halving) ZF would have daily ZEC inflows of ~270
vs Today where ZF receives ~470 ZEC per day
I’m assuming that ZF (as it can today), would be able to continue to make the same cases for its 501c status in the future regardless of the slight change to how block rewards are distributed… i.e. any risks that exist today, wouldn’t be significantly heightened under my proposal. Coins inflowing is decreased, and in large part ZF operations stay about the same… the only difference being, ZF would then custody/ distribute on behalf of ECC, Qedit, and ZCG - rather than only for ZCG.
The other topic here, social centralization(?) is the risk actually increased when the ZF is operating in this new capacity based on NoamChom’s proposal? I’m only a lone wolf forum participant/ activist investor, and hypothetically speaking my proposal gained ecosystem wide consensus before it was put into action.
This is a much different situation than if a ZF board member put forward a proposal to centralize ZF capacities, and then consensus building process was non-democratic.
Also keep in mind, that by taking Bootstrap/ ECC out of the direct wallet receiver situation, their organization’s risk profile drops because they turn effectively into a grantee like ZCG or Qedit are today.
I like this suggestion, so if that organization is interested/ able, then we should accommodate that path for an FPF/ Qedit relationship.
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I think you may be conflating how ZF manages its unrestricted assets, and how ZF manages the restricted Major Grants (i.e. ZCG) treasury.
It’s not just about optics, it’s about centralization - putting all of the Zcash ecosystem’s eggs in one basket.
Many people raised concerns about the fact that both ECC and ZF are US-based entities because it means that, if the US decided they wanted to hamstring the Zcash project, they could do so by moving against ECC and ZF.
This, by the way, is why we helped establish FPF.
What you’re suggesting would make it even easier to hamstring Zcash - you’d only need to take action against a single organisation.
You’d also be placing a lot of trust in ZF’s leadership. I may be a good guy (YMMV! 
) but how do we know my successor won’t turn out to be a corrupt, megalomaniacal narcissistic snakeoil salesman, who starts channelling funds to his friends and family-members?
That is why a single organisation must never become the sole recipient of the Dev Fund.
That fact that the proposal is coming from a “lone wolf forum participant” and not a ZF board member is irrelevant. Who proposes it doesn’t change the result.
Besides, how do we know Noamchom isn’t actually my sock puppet? 
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Those details aside, all that was intended is that more ZEC presumably would create a stronger balance sheet. Like noted above, I pulled that line out completely, it is unnecessary.
Moving all of the eggs through one basket, which then programmatically redistributes those eggs to both US based, and non-US based teams supporting Zcash 
But yes, I agree with your concern. Based on all of what I can see today, there is only one org left as the potential second-receiver/ custodian for direct block subsidies - @FPF
@amber could you/ whoever else is active in the forum share your ideas/ interest level/ capacity for FPF to act in that sort of role for a hypothetical next Dev Fund implementation?
(Where the general solution would be: 1. ZF remains as-is, receiving block subsidies of its own, and on behalf of ZCG, and potentially ECC/ Bootstrap/ Qedit/ SL; 2. The FPF could function in a similar role, perhaps off-loading the international orgs or whatever else community consensus might be Qedit/ SL/ ZecHub ?)
Tell me what you really think about past Zcash leadership
Hahah, there has got to be a zero-knowledge proof for this somehow!
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Based on clarifications in the above, I’ve got questions here that either @daira or @joshs can address.
- Do I need to further detail that the ECC would only receive their 4% for the ~year after this November’s NU6 Halving/ upgrade?
- Would the ECC (prefer to) accept funds for that 1 year via direct address or indirectly thru ZF or FPF?
- After that 1 year extension, those 4% should be distributed into the Ecosystem DAO and/or ZSF/ Unissued Reserve Fund depending on availability. If unavailable, to the ZF.
- Would the ECC continue to spearhead the creation of an Ecosystem DAO for future funds allocation, although my proposal doesn’t explicitly mandate so?
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Yes, FPF would be open to discussing this possibility. Our preliminary logistical and regulatory check on this concept is favorable. Note that there would be a cost involved (TBD) for FPF to take on this role but we’d endeavor to keep it as minimal as possible in-line with our non-profit status.
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Recycling these questions since its been a few weeks without any response.
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The only way that we’d take funding is part of a mandate that we move to a non-direct funding model. I’m not clear on whether that is compatible with your thinking.
This creates a strong centralization risk. The ZF and FPF are closely tied, sharing a high ranking employee and board member. If the fund was extended for up to a year with a non-direct mandate, we would accept funds directly during that period.
From the community polling, there is strong support for a non-direct funding model. As long as that is the case, we will work with the community on the creation of such a structure.
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I’ve added my proposal as a ZIP here Manufacturing Consent any feedback is welcomed.
Also note that I’ve made some additional changes based on continuing feedback/ community sentiment preferences becoming clearer.
I’ve updated my proposal to mandate for the general “non-direct funding model”. Although I think it is quite ambitious to attempt in 1 year, I do believe that mandating it for a 4 year period is absolutely reasonable.
As for ECC’s funding in my proposal, it would be 4% of the block subsidies for only the first year (administered by the ZF, as they do today for ZCG). Afterward, in the following 3 years, those 4% will be split up as 1% additional to ZCG, 1% additional to ZF, 1% to FPF, and 1% to ZecHub
I’ve noted that FPF would be administering block subsidies for Qedit and ZecHub. (pending working out details of their participation)
Financial transparency obligations have been decreased from a SHALL statement, to a recommendation for all block subsidy recipients.
I’ve not included the gentleman’s agreement about use of block subsidies, that idea can remain here in the forum proposal only.
I did some presumably non-impactful wordsmithing (find replace slices with allocations these are invaluable ZEC afterall, not pieces of Hawaiian pizza) and removed some portions of text that feel no longer relevant.
We’ve tolerated 8 years of debatably greater centralization of ZEC/ project leadership. Unfortunately, this situation is par for the course in Zcash, imo it is the nature of such a complex protocol with so few SMEs and so few fully salaried leaders/ POs/ planners.
Ideally we could snap our fingers and have the “non-direct funding model” tomorrow, to eliminate funding centralization risk… but that isn’t reality, we’re year(s) away from something that powerful.
It is hands down the most strongly supported theme in polling!
That is why I’ve modified my proposal to also include a mandate.
We’ve all get to get together/ get our heads down/ start to work on building this thing asap.
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FPF has posted a proposal to move ZCG under FPF. IF this happens, and IF there is a Dev Fund and IF ZCG receives a portion of that funding, it would consolidate too many recipients in one place under your proposal. You didn’t have this info prior to revising your proposal but I think we all agree that such consolidation would be detrimental and counter to the decentralization we’re all trying to achieve.
In any proposals going forward, both ZecHub and QEDIT should administer their own funding unless the FPF/ZCG proposal is rejected (or another org steps in) in which case FPF would be open to discussing the administration of that funding if it would be useful in furthering decentralization in the ecosystem.
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In response to some of the above feedback, and other community discussions/ clarity around ecosystem preferences, I’ve updated some more details in my proposal (summarized below, Github ZIP here):
- noting TBD nature for block subsidy administrators/ direct recipients (ZF, FPF, ECC, ZCG, Qedit, ZecHub, etc)
- clarified that NDFM mandate (for both design and deployment) spans the 4-year duration, but that the ZIP should also be reconsidered/ amended if NDFM is completed earlier
- eased transparency reporting expectations, to reduce administrative operating expenses