Zcash holders to vote on pulling 50,000 ZEC from grants treasury

Zcash's current funding model dates to the November 2020 halving, when the original 'Founders Reward' expired and block rewards were split three ways: the Electric Coin Company, the Zcash Foundation, and a new Major Grants arm run by Zcash Community Grants (ZCG), which took 8% of issuance. That structure was meant to decentralise who pays for development after ECC's original grip loosened. The draft going to a vote this month would unwind the ZCG stream entirely and replace it with a one-time, locked allocation.

If the vote passes, ZCG stops receiving a running 8% cut of new ZEC and instead administers a fixed 50,000 ZEC reserve earmarked for development and legal defense. Grant applicants lose a predictable, renewing budget and must work against a shrinking, finite pool instead. Miners see their effective issuance split change since less of each block reward is diverted to grants, which developers building on Zcash and the foundation's own funding pipeline will need to plan around immediately.

The move tests whether a lump-sum treasury buyout is a cleaner governance model than an open-ended percentage tax on miners, or simply a way to cap funding before it becomes a bigger political fight. Locking funds specifically for legal defense also signals that Zcash's stewards expect regulatory or legal pressure ahead, not just ordinary development costs. Critics of perpetual dev taxes will call this fiscal discipline; grant recipients dependent on steady funding may see it as a retreat. (per coindesk.com)

Polling opens Nov. 16 and the outcome will decide whether ZCG's 8% stream ends outright or survives in some amended form. A yes vote locks in the 50,000 ZEC reserve and shuts the recurring tap; a no vote keeps the halving-era funding split intact and sends drafters back to renegotiate terms with grant recipients and miners who each have opposing stakes in how the reward is divided.

Zcash rose 1.2% in the 4 hours after the first headline, after falling 0.6% in the 2 hours before.

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