Registration: Coinholder Poll to Ratify the Retroactive Grants Program

Governance
1

I’m opening the registration period for ZEC holders to participate in the upcoming poll on whether the NU6.1 Coinholder Grants Program should be structured as a retroactive grants program. Coinholders will need to move their ZEC into the Orchard pool or refresh their notes during the registration window, which runs from Block 2,806,040 (January 31, 2025) through Thursday, August 21 at 5:00 PM Pacific / 8:00 PM Eastern / 12:00 AM UTC. Once the registration deadline passes, you’ll be able to cast your vote.

I’ll share detailed instructions on how to vote, the questions, and a link to the voting app the week of August 18.

Please note that the safest way to participate in the poll is to wait until the registration window has ended, then move your ZEC out of the wallet you plan to use for voting before you complete the poll. That way, when you enter your seed phrase to vote, the wallet will be empty, minimizing any risk of losing funds.

I’m also looking for community members to help run voting servers. The Coin Voting 2.0 system relies on a dedicated blockchain secured by CometBFT and maintained by a group of validators, known as voting authorities. If there’s only one authority, there’s a risk that votes could be selectively included or excluded. However, with at least four independent validators, the system becomes resistant to manipulation, as long as two-thirds are honest. This ensures the results are finalized through consensus, rather than by a single centralized operator.

If you’re interested in running a voting authority or have questions about what’s involved, please respond below or send me a DM.

Lastly, transparent ZEC holders can also participate in the poll by signing a transaction, using the same process as the governance poll held earlier this year.

I’ll share more details about the upcoming poll soon.

13 Likes
3

My setup is Zashi + Keystone and I would like to vote with my shielded Zcash on the Keystone wallet.

So the best process to keep the funds always in the shielded pool on a Keystone and never expose them would be:

  1. Have them on the (first) Keystone until the snapshot is taken on August 21.
  2. Move all funds to a second Keystone (with a different seed phrase).
  3. Vote with the seed phrase from first Keystone by putting it into the voting software and consider the seed phrase burned afterwards (because it has been exposed to software outside of a hardware wallet).

Is this correct?

I would also like to know what’s involved in running a voting server.

6 Likes
4

Correct.

Here’s a demo from @hanh:

Also, here’s a link to the Voting Authority Coordination thread from the governance poll held earlier this year:

If you have any additional questions about running a voting server, @dismad, @hanh, @outgoing.doze, and @james_katz are likely the best people to answer them, as they participated in the process last time.

7 Likes
5

Thanks @aquietinvestor for the pointers, I’ll check them out!

2 Likes
6

I would take look here for some good info. Any questions feel free to reach out via DM :+1:

3 Likes
7

Thanks, I skimmed through the documentation you both provided regarding the voting authorities. Since 2/3 of the voting authorities need to be honest I think it would be great to have more than 4 this time around. I would be glad to add another one. I just recently setup a Debian box to run zebrad, I could use that to also run a voting authority for the upcoming election.

4 Likes
8

You don’t really need another physical keystone, you can manage up to three seed phrases on a single device: Create or Import with 3 Seed Phrases | Keystone.

3 Likes
9

Cool, thanks! I didn’t know about this feature.

1 Like
10

Unfortunately right now you can’t manage more than one keystone account in Zashi, but it’s in roadmap.

You can of course remove one and add the other and so on, but it’s quite uncomfortable. Waiting for multi account support…

2 Likes
11

Yes, I’ll have to work with two phones with Zashi for now.

3 Likes
12

I’m mostly offline in a remote area for the month of August so I guess I won’t be able to participate to that one, but I can’t imagine it will be too controversial.

@aquietinvestor do you think we could establish a clear schedule of when the stakeholders should be expected to pay particular attention over the year?

1 Like
13

Yes, I plan to publish a schedule sometime in September.

6 Likes
14

Reminder: There’s less than one week left to register your coins. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions or run into any issues.

2 Likes
15

Update: The voting authorities for the upcoming poll will be @dismad, @frankbraun, @james_katz, and @artkor. I’ll create a Signal group for us to coordinate. Thank you all for volunteering!

12 Likes
17

How it works:

5 Likes
18

The registration period is now closed. Next, I’ll coordinate with the Voting Authorities to get the poll up and running. The poll should go live no later than Saturday morning US time and will run for 10 days. I’ll publish detailed instructions on how to vote when polling begins.

Over the past few weeks, @joshs, @Alex_ZF, and I met several times to draft and refine the poll questions. The poll will consist of the following two three questions:

Q1: Should the Coinholder Grants Program be limited to retroactive grants only?

  • Yes
  • No

Q2: If a retroactive grant is approved but there aren’t enough funds available that quarter, should partial funding still be awarded? For example, if the Coinholder Grants Program treasury has $1,000,000 and two grants are approved - one for $800,000 and another for $400,000 - only one can be fully funded. Grants will be prioritized by the number of votes received. In this case, the $400,000 grant could receive $200,000 in partial funding, or it could receive nothing and re-apply the next quarter.

  • Yes, allow partial funding
  • No, reapply next quarter

Q3: Do you support the program structure and grants process described in the NU6.1: Coinholder-Directed Retroactive Grants Program proposal, and approve moving forward with writing it into a ZIP?

  • Yes
  • No

More to come soon. I’ll keep you updated as things progress.

6 Likes
19

if a user moved their funds into a new wallet to vote. is it safe now to move those funds back to still be able to vote?

2 Likes
20

I assumed that 00.00.01 UTC was enough and did so LOL. So I hope it is ^^

1 Like