I’ve been digesting the question of contested proposals and had a thought:
Maybe Zcash Needs a “Protocol Convention/Ceremony”?
Seeing the divergence between the NU7 ZCAP poll and the Coinholder poll, especially around ZSAs, gave me a bit of heartburn, and then a turn towards introspection.
I don’t think anything here is fundamentally broken, and I think that there is broad agreement that these polls are meant to be guideposts rather than binding decisions. But seeing the divergence and the dramatic reactions to it did highlight something that feels increasingly familiar. Every so often we hit these governance moments where everyone sort of looks around and wonders what actually constitutes the final and determinative community signal.
Zcash governance is distributed and decentralized by design which is very much a strength. But we lack a generally recognized and formally ritualized public finalization phase. And so when signals among the distributed pole’s polls diverge, the vibes can get a little dramatic and spicy.
So here’s a serious but half-baked idea: What if major network upgrades potentially included a formalized Protocol Convention phase?
I’m basically suggesting we steal a page from US political party conventions. Maybe even up to and including the balloons.
A Convention?
I don’t mean a DAO, I’m thinking something much more dusty and even analog. A structured, time-bounded moment where all the existing legitimacy sources we already use (coinholders, ZCAP, builders, and community members at large) converge into a clear, legible outcome. There would be room for debate, politicking, and open brainstorming before anything becomes set in stone. It could be at a physical location, or structured like a virtual conference, or some form of hybrid.
Right now we have a lot of signal generation to measure sentiment. What we don’t really have is a shared sense of “okay, this is the mechanism and moment where sentiment crystallizes into some firm, actionable decision” when there is disagreement.
What’s the Point?
Governance panic moments are…not my favorite genre of Zcash discourse (I imagine others must feel similarly) and I think as Zcash becomes a more mainstream asset, we owe it to ourselves and to the broader world to have a clear and orderly system for making weighty decisions.
When polling signals diverge, the conversation often drifts toward questions of turnout legitimacy, measure validity, representativeness, operational friction, and the open question of who gets the final word. These can become dramatic, ugly, and often unproductive.
A convention wouldn’t eliminate disagreement (nor should it), but it might give us a predictable container for resolving it. So instead of lots of “the signals are confusing, this is a crisis, what do we do?” we can calmly walk together into an established process.
When Would This Happen?
Definitely not for every decision. My rough intuition:
1)A Network Upgrade reaches feature-freeze-candidate territory and
2)Governance signals diverge enough that the path forward feels ambiguous.
The goal wouldn’t be endless governance, but rather a process the community can invoke when the path forward looks unclear.
Who Would Show Up to this Weird Parliament?
Zcash community legitimacy comes from multiple places, so the convention’s should too. Very rough sketch of the invitees:
Coinholder Delegates
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Voting weight tied to holdings snapshots
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Delegation allowed so people don’t have to reshuffle coins just to participate, would rather cede authority to another trusted party, or aren’t able or willing to attend themselves
ZCAP Members
Builders / Founders
- Some weight tied to demonstrated ecosystem contribution: code, research, infrastructure, etc.
Not saying this is the exact structure, just brainstorming and reflecting the fact that authority in the Zcash system is neither (nor should be, IMO) purely oligarchic or perfectly egalitarian.
What would actually happen at the convention?
I’m picturing a structured, time-limited window:
Phase 1 - Deliberation
Clear framing of upgrade options and tradeoffs. Time for advocacy, debate and discussion, both in the open and in private.
Phase 2 - Delegation Window
Convention invitees vote directly or delegate to someone whose brain they trust more than their own, or if they can’t be present themselves.
Phase 3 - Ratification Vote
Structured, agreed-upon ballots that produce the strongest possible community signal going into implementation.
Decision Rules
I’m not proposing a fixed formula yet, but something like a multi-chamber model might make sense with each group (Coinholders, ZCAP/Builders, and Regional Bodies) each contributing to the outcome rather than any single group acting as the final arbiter.
I don’t intend this to be:
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A panic stricken or reactionary take on recent polling results
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A claim that our governance model is broken or breaking
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An attempt to bypass engineering judgement
Just trying to start a conversation and elicit some thinking on whether the existing system is “good enough” or if we should devote energy to making it better.
I have a few ideas on the actual structure and ceremony (and how to invoke it, weighting of the votes, auditing, etc), but wanted to float this out there to see what if any interest there is in an idea like this before spending a lot more time on it. Or see maybe someone has already come up with a more fleshed-out proposal!
