Last year, the community voted to give itself one year to determine how funds allocated to the lockbox would be disbursed. That period ends this November.
While the community granted ZCG another 8% during this period, its funding will end this November. Currently, ECC and the Zcash Foundation are running on reserves. At current ZEC price levels, ECC will likely run out of funding before a new mechanism is activated unless it significantly cuts activities or the community decides to implement a distribution mechanism that activates later this year.
The community must decide whether to fund ECC to continue its core development efforts, Zashi product work, or both.
We will soon draft ZIPs for the zBloc and Community + Coin Holder Funding Model (should there be support), and I request that we call a community vote ahead of ZconVI in early March with the following questions:
Question 1 - What should happen before or at the end of the current 1 year lockbox implementation:
Let the development fund expire while the community continues to work on a new distribution method
Extend the current lockbox implementation for 1 year and continue to work on a new distribution method
Immediately implement the preferred distribution method
Question 2 - What is your preferred distribution method?
zBloc
Community + Coin Holder Funding Model
Either a or b
None, either let the development fund expire or continue to explore other options
Time is of the essence. After we receive your feedback, ECC will poll the ECC ZAC and work with Hahn on a coin holder vote. We ask that the Zcash Foundation poll the ZCAP and that other community groups, such as ZecHub, weigh in.
I support #2, keeping the status quo for one more year.
I do not see enough consensus in our community to justify a change yet.
I also see funding debates as massive emotional drains and distractions for our contributors.
I believe that the entities which have been funded by the dev reward should be incentivized to seek funding from other sources. Myself included! Hunger spurs entrepreneurship.
The community needs to see ZSAs live, then decide which teams to reward retroactively from the lockbox.
Entity leaders: do ZF and ECC have the runways to persist for another year? If it’s an emergency, are you in a position to seek external grant funding (see Tor Project, Signal Foundation, and Mozilla Foundation’s annual reports for inspiration), or apply for large ZCG grants?
Question 1 - What should happen before:
a) ecc & zf provide an immediate financial snapshot, weekly and monthly burn rate for 2025
b) stop all new hiring and new projects, cost cutting time. Immediately review employee salaries vs strategic alignment
c) define core strategic strengths: are you a protocol developer or app developer organization? (Maybe both orgs are still spread to thin)
d) create a forum thread to have community members publicly support your priced out action plan, let’s make a deal on the lockbox and fund protocol development. We need momentum for NU7.
I vote for: 3 Immediately implement the preferred distribution method
Question 2 - What is your preferred distribution method?
5) still looking
These are fair asks. I think that whomever is making the decision on grant funds would expect transparency and accountability. However, it might be tied to a specific effort rather than a specific org, if that makes sense.
zcash-cli verifymessage "t1VydNnkjBzfL1iAMyUbwGKJAF7PgvuCfMY" "ICrKSQjLORZP/aUTluyf2sZXXK+HuKtxdBLt2RRCn2j5CxgZlccNmiMC2K104JuhHnvHd5cXgSzdZtGh9vgWAYA=" "Until it is controled by ZEC token holders, consider this message a token weighted vote against any further usage of the dev fund."
Quite fair and clear. For 8 years there has no price development with Zcash, it has come to a complete standstill, and that has mainly to do with those (ZCF/ECC) who have been financed handsomely from the dev fund for 8 years. If you now think you have to put the community under pressure by threatening to shut down your work, then bye-bye. You have lived off the pot that financed the community for far too long. Bye-bye, you have had enough time to look for other sources. That you still have the cheek to ask for money. No matter how great developers you have and what great things you develop, in 8 years you have not managed that your “great project” is actually used or at least marketed and do you know why, because to date you do not have a great project but have swallowed a lot of money. Zooko is primarily responsible for this, who simply renamed the child from ECC to Shielded Labs now and took the same friends with him who have also been responsible for this for 6 years, but fortunately are no longer paid from the community pot.
This discussion is only emotional because it is unbearable. Look for external sources, such as those as example that also fund shielded labs, and then they will be held fully accountable for every hour and cent they cost. If you can’t find one, there is a reason for it and it should no longer be funded by the community.
If there is almost no money left, all funding or requests must be stopped until further notice, the ZCG must be frozen immediately, as well as all salaries. Only the most important and the absolute minimum may be spent.
The 20% dev fund must be terminated immediately. All reserves must be used up. After that, every organization must finance itself. A ZCG is not necessary and must be dissolved immediately. In the future there will only be one Zcash community fund into which 5% block rewards will be paid. In the future, all future financing from the Zcash community fund will be voted on and decided via the zcash coin voting. For the purpose of equal opportunities but above all to really reflect the community opinion, each person can only cast one vote no matter how much zcash he holds or owns.
We should always include an option in every vote in the future:
Should the grant be approved or should we use the same amount of money to buy zcash from the market. In the future, we should also always consider one option in every vote:
Should the grant be approved or should we simply remove the same amount of ZEC from the market to reduce the supply which probably has more use than most things that are financed here.
i feel you, wish it was this way either.
and in other hand i understand that all of this is impossible…
if we see an organized group, ready to take over Zcash future, the talk will be different.
The Lockbox will have accrued a total of 78,750 ZEC by the end of the current Dev Fund (block height 3146400, currently projected to be mined on 23rd November 2025). That’s worth about $2,756,250 at the current ZECUSD price of $35.
You can calculate how much will accrue in the the Lockbox for yourself using the current block subsidy (1.5625 ZEC) and the Funding Streams details in ZIP 1015.
The full amount over the duration of the current (one year) Dev Fund is calculated as =(3146400-2726400)*(1.5625*12/100)
To calculate the amount that has accumulated in the Lockbox at a given block height, replace 3146400 with the block height.
For example, right now (block 2827321), the Lockbox contains (2827321-2726400)*(1.5625*12/100) = 18,922.6875 ZEC (worth about $662,294).
