Before I address some of the specific questions raised here, I want to say a few things.
I suggest that everyone takes a breath. As @zerodartz pointed out, this topic is getting too heated. That’s perfectly understandable, given the passion and strength of feeling that we all hold for the Zcash project. It’s worth remembering that we all want the same thing.
There is always an element of risk involved in any grant. Things don’t always work out perfectly. There may be unforeseen problems or obstacles that need to be overcome, delays, misunderstandings, all sorts of issues that can cause problems and delays for a project. There needs to be flexibility to adapt to changing circumstances to avoid projects getting derailed. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
I encourage everyone to carefully read @BrunchTime’s post about the challenges of being on a decision-making body like ZCG.
ZCG committee members are elected by the Zcash community (with a term of one year), so they are directly accountable to the community in the sense that the community can choose to not re-elect an existing member when their term is up.
Here’s a view with the column headers included.
The “Paid Out” column shows the date the milestone was paid out. In this instance, the milestone was split into three separate payouts that were paid on 30th April, 6th May and 9th May. The “ZEC Disbursed” column shows the number of ZEC that were paid out, and reflects the ZECUSD price on that day (which you can check by dividing the Amount (USD) by ZEC Disbursed - i.e. $21.03, $23.22 and $23.51, respectively).
Put simply, the hedging process ensures that ZCG’s treasury is always capable of covering its grant liabilities. It’s carried out by ZF, in consultation with the ZCG committee.
When a grant is approved, we sell ZEC for USD, when is then held in the ZCG treasury. When a milestone is paid out, the USD can then be used to buy back the ZEC needed to make the payout (completed milestones are typically paid out in shielded ZEC).
In practise, the reduction in liabilities that results from a milestone payout is often offset by an increase in liabilities resulting from the approval of new grants, so we take into account upcoming milestone payouts and likely grant approvals, and consult with the ZCG committee if we feel that it may be better to run a significant deficit, or hold surplus USD pending upcoming milestone payouts or new grant approvals.