I answered incorrectly then. I interpreted the words âfunding mechanismâ as in the source of funding.
To me, the question is asking if ZF should be funded, not from block rewards, but from other sources such as earned income, investment income, or donations from the community.
Yes, I can easily see how ânew funding mechanismâ could be interpreted as âa funding mechanism that is different from the current funding mechanism, i.e. block rewardsâ
I was stumped by the wording also, because it is as clear as day that the community has a minimum of 3 opinions about the block rewards
retain the block reward as-is
retain the block reward in a new form
remove the block reward
The wording as-is is simply incompetance in leadership. Responsibly constructing a poll question isnât rocket science. Part of me is wondering if the confusing, binary wording was intending to coerce more ZCAP voters into selecting âYesâ than âNoâ
There is a 4th option as well, which may also fall under your #2 with a little more detail.
Retain the block reward as is plus add a TXN fee model. That is, let block rewards run their natural course to 0 over time (the sooner the better) until we reach the 21m cap. Then at the same time introduce a fee structure to begin the process of transitioning to a market based system ASAP. Note: it appears the Sustainability Fund is seeking to take the TXN fees as we move to a TXN fee model. If this is working as it appears, it would effectively phase out the ECC and Foundation over time as block rewards are eliminated. Is this what we want? I think No. The Sustainability Fund should be under the Foundation or the ECC and not a new org directly collecting TXN fees. Ideally TXN fees are also designed to cut out the middle men while at the same time directly paying the miners, the blockchain fee for core blockchain development, the respective token yield, and app developers. So for example a 2% TXN fee gets split between these 4 parties (not necessarily equally; but dynamically set), respectively. As we add additional assets, the ecosystem would hopefully generate enough transaction volume such that the transaction fees can be kept low (match competition), offer value to people looking to transact privately (EG the high transaction volume coins will almost certainly be stablecoins), and earn a profit as evidenced by yield or a burn mechanism (preferrable yield give the 21m cap).
I dont think we should be doing one without the other; its an integrated approach to develop an ecosystem. Parsing these things out separately makes it impossible to develop the ideal or working ecosystem. TXN fees and Block rewards are intricately connected. (Also, it appears there are new orgs already vying to capture the future fees. So that another reason to address it now).
We have a funding need and the question is how is it funded? We really have three levers to pull on: 1) issuance/inflation 2) Fees and 3) community donations. So all three need to be considered at the same time to develop a model that works and ultimately issuance needs to be completely removed with a 21m cap. Issuance/inflation can work only with a burn and its considered viable only when the burn is greater than issuance. But we dont have that model. So that means we need to move to fees now (get the structure working) while over time removing inflation/block rewards.
From a business perspective, I agree with all of your points. But the reality of things are different, because this decision has got to be completed prior to November 2024.
Considering that the Zcash bureaucrats and builders have alredy been under stress the entire past year, while continuing through a state of distress for the foreseeable future, there arenât enough resources available to adequately re-engineer the fee model to be ready for mainnet by November 2024.
It leaves the ecosystem in a situation where the debates are limited to who gets how much (if anything at all) until after the halving next year.