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

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

The proposal would remove more than half of Zcash Community Grants' ZEC holdings from circulation and redirect its future block rewards into a new development and legal-defense fund.

Zcash holders and community panels will vote Nov. 16 through Nov. 30 on a proposal to remove 50,000 ZEC, about 55 percent of the grants treasury, from circulation and return its value through future mining rewards.

The proposal would redirect Zcash Community Grants’ 8 percent share of newly created coins to a new development and legal defense fund, leaving the grants program to rely on its remaining treasury.

The plan requires community support and a network upgrade, with no activation date set, and spending from the new fund would require a separate proposal.

Zcash holders will begin voting next week on a plan to remove 50,000 ZEC from the network’s grants treasury and return their value through future mining rewards.

The draft Zcash Improvement Proposal, written by co-founders Sean Bowe and Zooko Wilcox alongside Jason McGee, was merged into the specifications repository on Wednesday. Polls for coinholders and community panels open Nov. 16and run through Nov. 30.

The proposed removal represents about 55% of the 91,453 ZEC in an October treasury snapshot cited by the draft. Zcash Community Grants, or ZCG, uses that treasury to fund developers, wallets and community projects.

If adopted and activated in a network upgrade, the plan would require ZCG to remove the coins from circulation within 30 days. Their value would be credited to the Network Sustainability Mechanism, a reserve activated under the recent NU7 upgrade that gradually returns ZEC through future block rewards.

The proposal would also stop ZCG from receiving its current 8% share of newly created ZEC. That allocation would instead accumulate in a new Future Dev and Legal Defense Fund until Zcash’s next halving.

Nobody could spend from the new fund initially. A separate proposal would have to establish how withdrawals work. ZCG would keep its remaining treasury and continue awarding grants, while the separate 12% Coinholder-Controlled Fund would remain unchanged.

Why the vote takes place

Zcash pays for part of its development with newly created coins. ZCG receives 8% of that issuance, and its five-member committee awards grants to independent developers, wallet builders and community projects.

Those grants help pay for the software people use to hold and spend ZEC. Ending the automatic funding would leave ZCG drawing on its remaining treasury to support that work. Meanwhile, the proposed 50,000 ZEC removal would help fund future miners, who run the machines that confirm transactions and secure the network.

ZEC’s rally made the committee’s existing coins worth much more, while new funding continued arriving. That prompted calls to stop adding to a treasury already large enough to cover years of grants.

ZCG earlier proposed gradually reducing its funding and redirecting about 98,000 ZEC from existing assets and future income toward mining rewards. It abandoned that plan on Nov. 3 following criticism.

No activation height has been set, and the draft lists no reference implementation.

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Diversified RWA stablecoins sustain 5-7% yield from real credit as crypto funding compresses to ~4%. GENIUS pushes yield off-chain; TAM grows to $4B in 3 years.

Diversified RWA stablecoins sustain 5-7% yield from real credit as crypto funding compresses to ~4%. GENIUS pushes yield off-chain; TAM grows to $4B in 3 years.

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