Zcash’s $124M treasury shake-up draws a governance side-eye 👀

Zcash Community Grants (ZCG) proposed redirecting about $46 million in Zcash tokens to future block rewards as governance backlash grew over the group’s roughly 91,500-ZEC treasury. In a preliminary plan announced Thursday, ZCG proposed transferring 36,200 ZEC to the Network Sustainability Mechanism (NSM), which reserves coins for future mining rewards.

The committee would retain about 55,200 ZEC, worth about $70 million at the time of writing. ZCG also proposed forgoing about 62,000 ZEC ($78.5 million) in future allocations and tapering its remaining funding until the 2032 halving. Together, the changes would redirect about 98,000 ZEC (about $124 million) toward future block rewards.

ZCG’s automatic allocation is currently scheduled to end in 2028, while the alternative would extend reduced funding for another four years. The group said the proposal was preliminary and that a full proposal would follow for community consideration.

Helius co-founder and CEO Mert Mumtaz called the proposal “nowhere near good enough,” saying the treasury was already too large and arguing that funding decisions should be accountable to ZEC holders. Gemini co-founder Tyler Winklevoss also questioned the committee’s accountability after Mumtaz said a committee member had unfollowed him on X. Winklevoss said such behavior made someone unqualified to oversee $110 million.

The criticism followed Zcash co-founder Sean Bowe’s earlier proposal to end ZCG’s automatic 8% share of newly issued ZEC and redirect it to the NSM while leaving the existing treasury untouched.