Polling Open: Coinholder-Directed Grants Program (Q1 Round)

Community Grants Retroactive Grants
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Important: The coinholder voting mechanism has changed. Please read these instructions carefully as you must use the Zkool desktop or mobile wallet to vote.

Overview

This poll determines which proposals will receive funding in the Q1 2026 Coinholder-Directed Grants Program. The program operates as a retroactive grants program, and allows ZEC holders to vote on completed projects they believe delivered meaningful value to the Zcash ecosystem. A proposal is approved only if at least 420,000 ZEC participate in its vote.

The poll will remain open until Tuesday, March 31 at 11:59 PM UTC Wednesday, April 1 at 11:59 PM UTC. Results will be shared after polling closes.

There are six proposals, along with a separate question on whether to rescind the grant approved for Bootstrap Org / ECC in the Q4 2025 funding round.

Here’s the full list:

  1. ZChat - The First Working Zcash-Native Private Messenger

  2. zec-pay.com

  3. Maya Protocol Advanced Shielded ZEC Support

  4. ZK Email in Halo2

  5. zcash.me

  6. Pepper-Sync

  7. Do you approve rescinding the Q4 2025 grant of $2,673,974 to Electric Coin Company (Bootstrap Org), given the organizational changes that have occurred since the original vote?

Shielded ZEC

Hanh has rebuilt the app from the ground up, so the voting process has changed and is now much faster and more streamlined. Previously, participants had to download a separate voting app, enter their seed phrase, and use a different URL for each question. Now, simply download the Zkool wallet (desktop or mobile) and use a single URL to access all questions.

Each proposal has three voting options: Abstain, Approve, or Reject. The default selection is Abstain. If you do not wish to vote on a proposal, please select Abstain.

You can download the desktop or mobile versions of Zkool at the following links:

Desktop Version:

iOS Version:

Android Version:

Below is the URL required to participate in this poll:

https://zecvote.zone

Please see the following tutorials from @dismad for detailed instructions on how to vote:

Desktop Tutorial

Mobile Tutorial

On average, it takes about three minutes for your votes to be processed and for you to receive confirmation.

If you’d prefer to delegate your vote to ZecHub, you can use the following address:

zcv14agccdyqc396k0t977x9jnaq0zdcsd5l9kzd4se4tn9m5n8j88s96zcudfl0c0z7nuyjuggacqc

Similar to before, the safest way to participate now that the registration period has ended is to move the ZEC out of the wallet you’re using to vote. That way, when you enter the seed phrase to vote, the wallet will be empty, eliminating any risk of losing funds.

Please use this thread to let us know if you run into any issues or to provide feedback on the overall process and user experience.

Transparent ZEC

If you want to vote ZEC held in a transparent address, follow the instructions and example outlined by @outgoing.doze:

Orchard Address:

u1lj9s8h3qz6su9gztwrpnw5mnsvfdeklgrn070j9ss9l8f2qpuhpsx2d5347qg30wkja2lzxjyhlc00gcxx2a690zl27qg5axagphf3s7

View Key:

uview1t2k9exue8kglrz7ue3f4skqy96qwdvmq3a3gs9l44nvjkh9fp8443e899let73m9wlp3uzumzsa26dtj96swws3kxaqnl4h3l8rafysn7mzffdlsdaeqjh3f8fjgq2xwr9vuuara0l8yqa75nvu6cdw46u0tear84pj6hz4y6jqhex358pn4vxrhpy0s93tn9hqxmfj2urnmpuuzs55hgwcxfu9nt6zscvev43yxm0lr8luxpdu8wx6gq8hprwl24eg8ktgmjyn5sf5mm3uy46cwvpru536u6wyle9u2t5p4qyjp4xpzrpqk8e3z9snf4e45nkatfphe8t4wvav6gktu0d6knzmdy8xnud8llh87xeuw3ltftcxlwjexvqdcr0fjreqgujzf9

Birthday Height:

3,221,100

Note: Funds cannot be moved during the voting period, which runs until Tuesday, March 31 at 11:59 PM UTC Wednesday, April 1 at 11:59 PM UTC.

9 Likes
Grant Application - hanh - Maintenance and Improvements to Coin Voting
ZecHub 2026
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If anyone has questions, please post here and we can help answer as they arise. Happy voting :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

2 Likes
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The new UI is pretty slick. Being able to vote on all the questions simultaneously is a big improvement.

3 Likes
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Voting in one session through Zkool is a real upgrade. Governance tools that people actually use build more legitimacy than governance tools that are technically correct but nobody touches. Good to see the friction dropping. That’s how participation grows.

2 Likes
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dumb question, how did a 420,000 ZEC quorom get set?

Thats pretty crazily high as a quorum for grants. I’d get it for protocol upgrades

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We wanted some kind of minimum participation threshold so that large grants reflect meaningful engagement from coinholders, not just whatever happens to pass with low turnout. 420,000 ZEC (2% of max supply) felt like a reasonable bar to make sure decisions have real economic weight behind them.

In the last grants round, over 1 million ZEC participated, so this threshold is well within what we’ve already seen. It shouldn’t be a constraint in practice, but the ZIP leaves it open to adjust if participation changes. Based on past data it seems like a pretty safe and realistic number.

See ZIP 1016 “Disbursement Process” and “Open Questions” sections.

4 Likes
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also this number was set at lower price about year ago so the threshold was around $16m fiat terms which probably made sense since submitted grants could be worth million or more.

but so far we have seen voters reach it somehow even at higher prices. for smaller coin holder grants it might seem like overkill but no need to change things when it works so far i guess

2 Likes
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Update: The coinholder voting mechanism is currently down. We’re actively debugging the issue and hope to have it back up and running by tomorrow afternoon (US time).

We may extend the deadline to account for the downtime, but will make that decision once everything is fully operational.

We’ll keep you posted as we have more information. Apologies for the inconvenience, and thanks for your patience.

4 Likes
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We are back up. Thank you for your patience.

5 Likes
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I formally object to the inclusion of question 7 on two separate grounds:

  1. As discussed at Review Period Open - Coinholder-Directed Grants Program Q1 2026 - #22 by daira , it is not consistent with ZIP 1016 to hold a vote on the ECC grant after it has already been vetoed by ZF and Shielded Labs. Specifically, ZIP 1016 says that:

    If a grant is vetoed after passing a coinholder vote, then payments for it MUST be stopped.

    and this applies regardless of the outcome of the vote on question 7, which therefore should not have been included. Holding a vote undermines the integrity of the veto process, which intentionally did not involve coin-weighted voting because of the risk of capture and because it did not meet legal requirements.

  2. In addition to the objection on the basis of ZIP 1016, I also strongly object to the fact that this question was proposed only 12 days ago and immediately accepted by FPF just two days before the start of the poll. This did not allow for an adequate review period — indeed, I had already submitted my comments on the poll within the mandatory 30-day comment period, and so reasonably thought that there was nothing more to review.

    Adding a coin-weighted vote —with two days’ notice— about a question that had already been decided by a mechanism designed, for very carefully considered reasons, not to use coin-weighted voting, amounts to governance on-the-fly with zero review. That is bad and should not happen.

    In my opinion, this was a clear process violation, for which I am formally requesting an apology from FPF and a commitment to not let this happen again. (I should mention here that the comment period was instituted as a result of a previous complaint about inadequate time for review of proposals.)

Question 7 should be struck from the poll and not counted. I am requesting this to be decided on as a matter of urgency before the end of the polling period.

2 Likes
Review Period Open - Coinholder-Directed Grants Program Q1 2026
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As for previous iterations of this voting system, I must point out that this is absolutely not sufficient to eliminate any risk of losing funds. You must confirm that the funds have been moved out despite the fact that you can’t really trust any software wallet to tell you that — and a hardware wallet will not tell you.

This violates the usual hardware wallet security model. Anyone who has enough ZEC to vote in this poll very much needs the security provided by that model.

The best you can do, should you decide to take the risk of using this protocol anyway, is to export viewing keys and use several independent wallet implementations on different platforms to view your balance in both the wallet you’re moving funds out of and the wallet you’re moving funds into.

1 Like
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Hello @daira, you are correct, the inclusion of the question was in violation of the review period specified in ZIP 1016 and therefore shouldn’t have been included. The results of that question will be discarded and the vetos from SL and ZF will proceed in accordance with the ZIP.

We will ensure that the review period is adhered to for future votes.

3 Likes
Review Period Open - Coinholder-Directed Grants Program Q1 2026
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Update: To account for the earlier downtime, we’re extending the deadline to Wednesday, April 1 at 11:59 PM UTC.

3 Likes
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Thankyou, this resolves my objection.

1 Like