Why Dialog?

Governance
1

I believe that we’re dialoging here because that’s HOW good governance and vision are created.

We’re helping ourselves and others learn things.

When those things are about how to organize ourselves, then we have practiced good governance.

If the point of a dialog is to understand, then there is no possible way to lose. I believe that a debate and a dialog are separate things, and that debating is relatively useless to the object of good governance.

To say that one has “won” a dialog, is as meaningless as saying that a song is “false”.

If privacy is fundamental to free communication and that’s the basis of good governance, then there is feedback here…

We are building privacy technology, which permits free communication, a pre-requisite for good governance, which can be used to build better privacy technology which permits…

But notice that the loop can break at any step.. privacy is not sufficient for this cycle to exist.. it is only necessary, and it’s precisely when that necessary component is relatively vigorous that we should be aware of the state of the rest of the system.

When one component starts working, that’s when the others are likely to experience the most stress.

This is where we find ourselves now.

How are we cultivating the precious context in which privacy can flourish?

I have thoughts, but I am curious if anyone read this whole post, so I will “pass the mike”.

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ShieldOrder for ZCG (December 2025)
Pepper-Sync
2

I agree. Real dialogue is one of the most powerful ways we truly come to understand anything. That’s why the Socratic method is so effective: the back-and-forth keeps digging until the real problem and what’s truly at stake finally come into clear view.

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3

Sometimes I have a hard time separating my ego from the content of the dialog.

4

Governance is intense. If one decides to participate, one has to accept a certain level of vigorous discourse.

I know I have used strong words, that to me were appropriate in context. I have also made sure to communicate that I very much value what it is that you do, because I didn’t want you to lose sight of that. Could have expressed myself better? Most likely. Those heated exchanges are always a good reminder that it’s worth taking the time to express things as respectfully as possible.

You raise an important topic though. The blockchain governance space is testing many approaches and it’s very exciting, yet also currently very bare bones and with many challenges.

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5

Name calling isn’t discourse.

I hurt your feelings, so you hurt mine. That’s just unskilled interaction.

6

Your proposal is to me, grift. You have made this proposal, so to me, that made you a grifter.

Should those opinions not be expressed, if they may be hurtful?

7

Are you simultaneously arguing that you can contribute meaningfully to governance, and also cannot express your position without dehumanizing labels?

8

If you don’t like being associated to such label, just don’t do an action that is associated with it.

I think there’s no need to philosophize our disagreement further. I have made a suggestion so we get out of this unfortunate situation; ball is in your camp.

9

Why Dialog - Great Theme

@zancas - I think your organization is building great things for the Zcash Community. Along the way ZL has been subject to forms of Governance such as meeting clear written milestones to receive funds. This form of Governance is being accountable to the Zcash Community whom have stated in zips that accountability is core to governance. in order to distribute funds.

The centralization of power to a small select group reduces accountability and good governance. The core of decentralized networks is to reduce power by any single entity. In zip 1015 one of the Zcash Communities core funding zips is now in control by Financial Privacy Foundation and administered by the Executive Director of the Zcash Foundation and its Chief Operatoring Officer and two unelected board members who have veto power to stop any project developer.

How is this centralization of power good governance?
How is this fulfilling the wishes of decentralization in zip 1015?

@outgoing.doze - Can you share your thoughts how this centralization of power is accountable and viable to long term good governance?

Thanks

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I’ll keep it short and sweet.

But first, let’s make crystal clear that we are talking about the governance of the dev fund, and not the governance of the protocol.

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11

Yes, zip-1015.

Thanks

12

Stakeholders are not accountable to anyone but themselves.

Does centralization of power reduce good governance? I’d like some proof of that. I am not here to argue either side, but given you do take a side, I’d like to know more.

I don’t see what is happening as a centralization of power. Power will be in the hands of token holders. The more skin in the game, the more power. That has been proven to work.

I respect people that do not like capitalism, but I’m done arguing whether it is a good model. I repeat: I am done arguing whether capitalism is a good model.

Now, my interest in long term governance is about something else: Coordination.

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13

Nobody is debating or arguing about capitalism in this Zcash Governance chat.

Coordination Layer interesting idea. Might be worth expanding
Thanks for sharing.

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14

You didn’t answer my question.

Let me rephrase:

Is it impossible for you to express your position without name-calling?

15

I agree that accountability is core to governance, in order to (paraphrasing) “manage” funds.

I think it can only be said to be “good” inasmuch as it’s a temporary state that accountably transitions towards more distributed forms. I like the idea (coming up from this conversation) that “accountability” should be linked to the distribution of agency away from centralized forms.

I will take the position that we’re incrementally improving.. moving away from centralization in some dimensions, while regressing in others.

Agency Distributing Moves Historical and Current

  1. Bitcoin PoW

  2. Etheruem PoS

  3. Zcash (Historical) with:

    • Trusted Setup
    • KYC’d exchange points
    • Centralized Mining
    • Transparent Addresses
    • Network Level Vulnerability
    • critical bugs
    • Privileged, Elite Key Holders, ZCG, ECC, ZF, FPF, SL

  4. Zcash Progress (Modern) with:

    • Trustless value transfer (Halo2)
    • DEX exchanges via Orchard (shielded)
    • Mine to Shielded
    • TOR (vulnerable to central authorities)
    • No Known Crit Vulns

  5. Zcash (Aspirational) with:

    • Transparent deprecation (well underway)
    • Decentralized Protocol Security (DELEGATED PoS)
    • Network Privacy – Nym (MixNet)
    • Dissolution Veto Power of the Aristocrats – ZCG, ZF, FPF, SL
      • In progress with Coin Holder Voting

Authoritarian Centralizing Moves (Current)

  • Non-consensual use of Taddresses.
  • Centralized PoW Mining
  • Veto By Aristocrats, e.g. anyone on the record as an agent of the US State willing to veto the will of coinholders if they vote in favor of funding a “sanctioned state”

Per The Specifics of ZIP 1015

I was motivated to reread it to respond to this post which aligns with my intention to spend more time reading ZIPs, so thanks for that!

Additionally I felt gratitude to the authors for their work: @aquietinvestor @peacemonger and @nuttycom

My succinct opinion about ZIP1015 as it relates to this conversation is that it might be worth it to work on an aspirational road-map that suggests the steps to get from our current structure to a more distributed state.

16

I don’t know. I struggle I suppose when I see disrespectful behavior towards stakeholders such as myself. Is it possible for you to understand what you did, your proposal, is disrespectful?

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What would bring clarity?

18

In the long run, effective governance will be the primary determinant of Zcash’s success and the long-term viability of its ecosystem.

There is no bulletproof solution, every design choice will eventually reveal flaws, and those flaws will be exploited. Once powerful beneficiaries emerge from a particular governance arrangement, changing it becomes extremely difficult.

Good governance must therefore strike a delicate balance: stable enough to provide continuity and trust over the long term, yet flexible enough to adapt to new realities and emerging challenges.

I see real strength in the fact that Zcash’s various institutions (the Zcash Foundation, Electric Coin Company, ZCAP, ZOMG, ZIP process, the Shielded Labs) currently operate under different governance models. This diversity spreads power, reduces single points of failure, and allows different approaches to compete and learn from one another. Healthy competition between governance systems is a feature, not a bug.

Building truly excellent governance is inherently slow work.

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19

Hi @Anaximander ,

I am challenged with your evaluation of diversity of these four Zcash Organizations and the fairy tale that this is diversity.

The CEO of Shielded Labs - has been seating of ZCG for five years.
The Executive Director of Zcash Foundation has been in every seating ZCG meeting as a note taker in the last fiscal year better yet the ED ZF has operational and spending control of all ZCG funds.
The Chief Operatoring Officer of Zcash Foundation - has operational and spending control of all ZCG funds.

The illusion that Zcash Community members can see a separation of duties between these massive roles in the name of decentralization. There are zero forms of accountability, third-party audits or public disclosure of valuate information to even come close to say this is diversity.

Please, show case information which can be independently verified or any professional guidelines which state these are not conflicting roles.

Thanks

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20

Interesting points that can find some agreement with, but personally I look at how things are evolving. Are they improving and worsening. As far as I can tell, things are not bad (could be better yes) at the moment, and they are also steadily improving.

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