Okay guys I’m almost sold on zcash. One thing keeps bothering me though. Monero is a giant open source project. You have anonymous people from around the world that add to the project. Zcash you have the Zcash founders and community that work on the project. Since Zcash is a company too. What would happen if the founders leave the project and the company goes under after their reward stops coming. That reward is about to phase out in a few years I believe. Would the project still be viable if the company no longer exists?
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…is bright.
If the developers were not paid to work on the chain I suspect it would suffer the same fate as ZCLASSIC did which decided to reward 100% of the block reward to the miners and 0% of the block reward to the developers, even though the developers bring significantly more value to a chain than the miners.
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Hi @wolfkinara,
Welcome to the forums 
Short answer: yes.
Long answer: yes, but. see below.
I know there is a lot to digest in this. Hopefully it is a decent enough summary for you to make an informed decision. Feel free to post more questions in this thread and I will give you more information.
No one knows. but this is not an issue now, see my response lower down.
It is worth pointing out though that zcash is a technology, ZEC is the financial asset associated with the technology and the Electric Coin Company is a the for profit entity that brought forward the tech and asset.
The ECC (Electric Coin Company, not to be confused with Elliptic Curve Cryptography) also created and kickstarted the non profit zcash foundation. (301c or something, its registered in America and im European)
The zcash foundation is the steward of the protocol and is designed to be around and working on ZEC and zcash for the duration. They also promote financial privacy. The ZFND supports/funds some monero stuff too (although im not 100% on what) Im sure @sonya can fill in any details I am missing here.
This was the case, in sept 2020? with Network Upgrade 4 (NU4) the “Founders reward” was going to come to an end. and the full allocation of block distribution was going to go to miners.
After a long and varied discussion, this is not going to be the case anymore. Instead what is going to happen is 20% of the block distribution is going to be allocated to future development.
With about 5% going to the ECC 5% to the foundation and 10% up for 3rd party developers (in all likelihood this will be the ECC for the foreseeable future) - At least up until 2024 - at which point the situation will be reassessed. However during this time, the ECC is encouraged to help other developers enter the space. the funding model put forward is also set out to encourage this.
At some point the ECC will be detached from ZEC but maybe not zcash. - to be completely honest I don’t know. the idea, at least I think the idea is that if the ECC “got hit by a bus” the asset and technology would continue. It certainly would be a rough few months but the zfnd is more or less in a position to cope. The idea is by 2020 that there will be funds available to people to continue forward with the work and no single point of failure.
Virtually all this discussion took place on this forum and a couple of hangouts (that are up on youtube) It is a long topic that spans about a year in total. So I have probably missed stuff out. Im sure @elenita or @joshs can speak to anything I have got wrong on this for the ECC and @sonya can clear up anything I have left out from the foundations side.
They are all good people and are very helpful.
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You’ll actually see a little bit of the future here in about 149 blocks 
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@mistfpga - I couldn’t have summarized it better (minus the whole getting hit by a bus thing)!
@wolfkinara - you can find more resources in the weekly forum updates. If you have any specific questions, please let me know.
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From “Another Boy” by Bruce Barton (Merry Christmas everyone)
Was there any comment? Did the petty government official wrote for the first time that was to be “above every name”-- did he wonder as he wrote? Probably not. It was just one more name on the census role. Just another boy.
What laughter would have rung through Rome if someone had pointed to that name and said, “There is the beginning of the end of your empire and of all empires everywhere.” Yet it would have been true. Democracy began, and Thrones began to totter when He said: “You are sons of God.” For if all men are sons of God, then all our brothers, and the poorest are entitled to equal rights and privileges with the King. Rome would have laughed, and Rome is dead. The influence of the child lives on, uplifting the standards of action and thought, inspiring laws, enlisting the strong in service to the needy and the weak.
We celebrate his birthday, and the Festival of all children everywhere. They, not we, are the really important people of the Earth. In cradles, and at the foot of the Christmas trees, are the lives that are to overthrow and rebuild all that we have built. Nothing is so powerful or so perfect that it cannot be transformed utterly by the miracle of another girl. Or another boy.
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zcash needs to provide solid things to win people’s trust and thus gain widespread usage.
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