Again, fair. From my perspective it’s about moving forward and being successful.
Your upset is about the unfairness of how things have started. My upset is about how, for four years, ZF and ECC have disrespected ZEC stakeholders.
But I cannot stay in the past and I am looking forward to a new chapter where things are meaningfully better and the project can become successful. I wish to have more people like you in this future of the project, expressing unfairness when they see it.
Hey, everybody!
I know a lot of people have already voted and this post won’t affect the result (which I sincerely don’t want to and so I took the necessary pause), but I’d like to show you something that hardly anyone noticed.
And it would be a good demonstration (I hope) that the holders-only voting model is not a panacea for the holders themselves, in an environment where no broad interested community exists.
So, I’m going to talk about our fork, which will be mined on the same algorithm as Zcash for about 10 more days - Horizen blockchain (about 25% of Equihash’ share).
On April 24, the vote to move Horizen from its own blockchain to the Base blockchain Ethereum’s Level 3, ended. A complete migration. No PoW-mining, no PoS-algorithm.
Voting was only going on for 3 days, just over 6% of ZEN coins voted - but they say it’s “142% quorum & 99.39%”. Mining will continue until 16 million coins are reached (~10 days). Although the miners don’t know anything about it yet, I can see it from the chat in telegram - no one is at all worried or in a hurry to switch to Zcash - but there are no other options especially. Although the PPLNS mechanism beloved by many suggests that it’s already time to switch.
By the way, the remaining 5 million coins have already been distributed and there is a distribution chart that appeared on CMC before the voting started. A completely centralized decision.
These are the abrupt changes, little discussion, very short voting period, very little notification, very few voters.
FYI @outgoing.doze
Well, we are not doing a 3-day election with a tiny quorum, though. I’m not sure why you compare our coin voting with theirs.
Because any model can be operated with disadvantages and great centralization. There will always be dissatisfied people. You know how there are games where you choose a path: a long path with the right for two mistakes, or a short path without the right, and there is also a golden mean. I’m in favor of the middle.
And most importantly, what I started with, I don’t want to influence anyone’s decision and I’m not trying to campaign for any model. This is just an example that I decided to share.
Because I know that sooner or later, Zcash will stop self-funding if ZEC is still in the current price range. All devfund’ binficiaries should understand this quite clearly and without my opinion. Therefore, I absolutely do not insist on any of the models.
Right, but this doesn’t mean that all systems are equal, does it? To follow your game analogy, in poker, any starting hand can get the nuts but 2-7 is not as good as AA.
absolutely not
Hey @artkor! Thanks for all the interesting points.
I really cannot speak about the ZEN project that I know nothing about, so I will refrain to comment on that specifically.
However, I’ll tell you this: I too, am concerned with stakeholder voting. It’s a great power, and a great responsibility.
There are only two sustainable paths forwards though:
That’s because the alternative, what we have now, simply does not scale, or even have any legitimacy. It could also be corrupted, right now, for all I know.
I have voted for #1 because even the most basic governance process, the one we are currently using here, is deeply flawed. Actually, I have misused the word “process” here, because there is actually no known process to interpret the result of the “global” vote (stakeholders + those double voting dev fund recipients + ???). @joshs is just about to wing it as far as I can tell (and nobody proved that point wrong).
I voted that way to make a statement, and I may keep voting like a “wrecking ball” until our governance is able to show a modicum of respect to stakeholders; with an actually respectable and legitimate process.
Meanwhile, I am getting ready for #2. While I do not know ZEN, I do know the Polkadot & Kusama ecosystem. I am therefore very aware of the challenges of stakeholder governance; it’s messy. And indeed, participation is absolutely key and we’ll need to massively ramp up outreach one way or another. ECC & ZF have been way too happy of the minimum participation outside of dev fund recipients because it puts them at a great advantage. Thankfully Shielded Labs has started changing that equation quite a bit.
Is there someone doing blockchain stakeholders governance better than Polkadot? I want to know, because I want us, Zcash, to be the best at it. And to get there, we first have to level up with the current best.
Look at this, they are handling their funds with improving dexterity: https://www.youtube.com/live/Ejc9eQ5JxVA?si=y7aGureOx8Umm4Yw
I understand the concerns, but we have to move forward with confidence and 
energy!
Bitcoin is now completely driven by large financial interests - the Blockrocks and Saylors of the world, their only objective to build more wealth.
Bitcoin development ossified years ago, and the chain now heavily surveilled. It is only used for accumulation. What was once the promise of the cypherpunks to bring financial freedom through cryptography and code, has been captured.
If Zcash is to be “unstoppable private money” and deliver on the original promise of Bitcoin, I suggest that Bitcoin’s path is the cautionary tale, not the example.
Our current governance neither improve, or worsen, this aspect. So I’m not sure why you bring this up.
Not even close [1][2][3][4]; working on crypto full time?
It’s a transparent chain 
. Anyway, was that relevant to our governance?
Not like ECC & ZF have delivered that either, and you’ve ran out of credibility, time & money.
True. That and the governance capture of Zcash by ZF & ECC.
I want to better understand your position. May I ask what you voted for in the current poll? If I remember correctly, you either want 100% of the block rewards go to the miners or are in favour of a 20% dev fund fully controlled by coin holders.
If this is correct, I want to ask, why you do not like the C&C model? Do you think the ZCG did a bad job in the past? Is it not a good mix of coin holder control as well as other community based governance through election of community members as ZCG committee?
Thanks for the question @spectre, this is my vote and position:
TL;DR: I think the C&C model is definitely an improvement over the current situation, however, we absolutely need a governance mechanism giving the vote the legitimacy it deserves. Until we fix this, I do not support unlocking the dev fund.
Thank you for the clarification!
So if I understand correctly, you are not against a Dev Fund in principle. However, you think that the voting process is not clear or rather not formalized and this results in uncertainty how the result of this poll will be interpreted and implemented. Thus you have decided to vote against an extension of the dev fund, giving 100% of the block rewards to the miners.
Your decision stems from the fact that you do not have the confidence in the current stakeholders (ECC/ZF) to implement the result of the poll correctly and according to the will of the coin holders. The current ZIP drafts (e.g. for the C&C model) are not sufficient for you, so to speak.
Have I expressed this correctly or am I misinterpreting something? Sorry, I’m probably a bit slow on the uptake in this regard. I just want to fully understand your position.
That’s pretty much exactly on point! I appreciate your interest in understanding my position as a stakeholder.
I’ll just clarify a few things:
That’s one option, but alternatively, funds could also accumulate in the lockbox until a legitimate process decides of the way forward.
Stakeholders imho are holders of ZEC. I know some people prefer a more broad definition, but I think it is detrimental to our governance and its understanding (“the current stakeholders (ECC/ZF)”). Things should be simple and clear for everyone. ECC and ZF are certainly stakeholders, of ZEC, like you and me.
While I indeed do not have confidence of ECC and ZF to retain a role a the very center of our governance, it’s more about long term legitimacy of our decision. I consider and have previously argued that four years ago, the transition from the founders rewards to the dev fund was not legitimate. We cannot keep pulling tricks if we want to be taken seriously by the world at large.
Thanks again, this certainly helps my understanding. I share your concerns to some extent. And I agree that at the end of the day ZEC holders and users are the main stakeholders of this network. For me this includes ECC/ZF/Shielded Labs/Zechub and any other organization or individual that holds and uses ZEC.
This brings us to the question, how can we improve that situation for all stakeholders?
Like Conrado already said in another thread: there is no magic mechanism that implements a certain voting outcome directly into the protocol.
We are dependent on human input and output, with all the advantages and disadvantages this entails. And this also applies to Zcash governance, which is still at an early stage and rapidly developing. The current fiat money system also harbors a great deal of trust (e.g. in the central banks and their monetary policy).
So what could help? For a start, it would be helpful to receive a written statement here in the forum from the leaders of ZF and ECC on how the various polls are interpreted and aggregated. Obviously this should happen before the deadline. The polls all had the same questions (addressed to coin holders, ZCAP, ZAC, Zechub). What happens if the outcomes are different? How is consensus defined (e.g. >50% approval)? Should we do several rounds of polls and in each we kick out the options with the lowest approval until we have a final poll with only 2 possible outcomes?
I would be down to stretch this out as long as we have to, so everyone is satisfied with the process.
Absolutely, but it’s also irrelevant. We know we cannot have the dev fund governance as part of the current protocol (this may change with PoS). We have been relying on trusted organizations for many things in Zcash, so we could certainly have some kind of multisig shared between Shielded Labs, ZF, ECC and others, where they would all agree to abide to the shareholder wishes, for as long as doing so would remain legal in their jurisdiction.
Exactly. In Zcash that’s basically a ZIP. In the process of doing that, I believe it is important to address the double-vote issue. Indeed, ZCAP, ZAC & ZecHub members already have a vote in the process, how would it be legitimate for them to also vote as token holders?
Here’s the approach I believe has a bright future:
I think some kind of quorum or min engagement should be specified, otherwse nothing happens. No vote is a vote.
Is it? I don’t believe it is. But that makes me think that we could improve our polls by having a NOTA option. Now that, would be a vote.
We are agreeing in different ways, many folks vote by doing nothing, and this would prevent that.
Come to reflect on this a bit further, I think something even better would be for stakeholders to be able to read the executive summaries of any of those entities they feel are representing their views.
In essence, that would imply that polling could be used internally by any of those groups and based on that they would communicate what they believe is the best way forward (their voting recommendation) for the project.
Ultimately, once we have delegation implemented, stakeholders could then delegate their vote to any of those entities they believe is best informed and most aligned what they want to see in the project.
Big fan of delegation.