I hope you excuse me using your disclosed salery for some elementary calculation that worries me a bit. I hope it’s ok to use it.
Foundations Part of Founders Reward: 1.44% of the monetary base (over four years).
Calculated into ZEC for 4 years: 302,400 ZEC
Value in USD at 50US$: 15,120,000 US$ (estiminated)
Foundation Directors/Empployes: 8
Base salery + benefits/other: estiminated 100,000 US$ per year estiminated
Saleries/Benefits for all Foundation members per year: 800,000 US$ estiminated
Saleries/Benefits for all Foundation member 4 years: 3,200,000 US$ estiminated
this wold mean without increasing the courrent member staff further, while my guess is it’s planned to extend the staff. An estiminated salery/benefits of 5,000,000 US$ might be closer to the end result.
Other Expenses i found:
Zcon0, estiminated Zcon1, Zcon2, Zcon 3, each ~360,000 US$ = ~1,500,000 US$
Only with these expenses listed here for 4 years half of the Foundation funds would be/are spent allready. In a worst case scenario if ZEC price further goes down there is a good chance these expeneses would make up even more as 1/2 of the funds like 2/3.
This calculation is far from correct and i’am well aware of it as no previous exchange rates are included, nor future exchange rates are known. Neither the exact expenses for officies, benefits, exact saleries and many other expenses are known. The idea behind it is just to have an estiminate overview on how much funds are available over 4 years for grants and other matters beside saleries and zcon’s…
Just some side notes that fit into the discussion here and as i had some time to read into the foundation site:
Our Values
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Transparency. We are committed to being accountable to the community. Our policies, significant decisions and their rationale, and software shall all be publicly visible. We will strive to accurately and accessibly communicate the security properties of Zcash and of proposed changes.
As this is in context with transparency and one of the values of the foundation i indeed suggest to disclose all saleries, benefits and similars the foundation members (Directors, employees) receive.
Humility. The Foundation will not seek to place itself in a position of control over the Zcash community. The Foundation will not hold privileged information about Zcash transactions (beyond what is observable by anyone from the public blockchain or disclosures outside the blockchain), nor hold or create capabilities for acquiring such knowledge.
Isn’t the wish the Foundation using Z-adresses contrary with this foundation statement? Leave alone going full Z-adress useage.
Cognizance. We strive to make well-informed and well-reasoned decisions, recognizing the vast body of knowledge offered by research and the experience of other cryptocurrencies.
I personally would like to see more publicity and details as well as availability of the information made on taking decisions.
Innovation. The Foundation shall support research and development to improve Zcash. It will strive to incorporate such progress into the Zcash protocol and software, while mindful of stability and security.
How many funds have been alocated into innovation so far? My understanding for innovation is that it’s something new, no something recycled, regnerated and similar. Maybe my English isn’t the best of course, so i would appreciate some more information about this extremly important point in my opinion. As well as why has so far 0 research be done into harmony, hybrids, POS like designs, whatever? I have asked for sure about 10 times so far if any researches have been done about harmony, blossom, whatever, never got an answer. After reading carefuly this point i came to the conclusion that the foundation should have some responsibility as well on doing unbiased, eventually 3rd party expert research, not?
Cooperation with other cryptocurrencies. No “coin” is an island unto itself, and the success and acceptance of cryptocurrencies are intertwined. We will strive to collaborate with other cryptocurrencies’ communities in areas of mutual interest.
With which other crypto currencies are we cooperating and what ar the gains so far. Don’t get me wrong, this makes absolutly sense and i’am all for it, but i’am missing any information about it. Actually i was going to suggest something similar “Crytpo Alliance” or “POW Alliance” as i saw some days ago that many POS coins are member of the so called “POS Alliance” to fix together issues and/or share important matters/results/whatever…Makes just sense if we had some kind of Alliance as well with some other currencies to share even costs for researching/fixing/innovate different matters, not?
Decentralization. We will strive to make the Zcash protocol and network decentralized, avoiding the placement of trust or granting of capabilities to any single party (assigned or emergent). Whenever current technology does not achieve perfect decentralization, we will seek to minimize, monitor and mitigate centralization.
That’s the point i’am most pesimistic. I even won’t comment it at all after i’am pretty sure that the majority of hashpower and mining pools are china based nowadays…
Inclusivity. The Zcash ecosystem consists of many subcommunities, such as end-users, developers, miners, exchanges, traders and researchers, in many countries and cultures. They should all be given a voice within the Zcash community and the Foundation’s deliberations.
This one sounds good, but how is each of these subcommunities given a voice and even more important how has each subcommunity access to the other subcommunities voice/thoughts/whatever. For example on the forum here we write mostly miners, some traders and some devs (when they are in good mood) and that’s it all over. I admit i have no idea how the average joe end user thinks about a given problem and i doubt the average joe end user never will read this post here. Same goes for researchers, exchanges, mining pools, whomever. This should be somehow improved in my opinion to get together more people and share more thoughts, experiences, suggestions, whatever…
Just some thoughts …