Zcash Co-Founder Proposes Ending Automatic Community Grants Funding, Says ZCG Assets Have Reached About $125M

October 27 — According to CoinDesk, Zcash co-founder Sean Bowe has put forward a draft proposal to end the automatic allocation of 8% of newly issued ZEC to the Zcash Community Grants (ZCG) program and redirect that share to a future mining reward reserve. The committee would retain its existing assets and continue to issue grants. Calculating at $1,300 per ZEC and net of unfulfilled commitments, Bowe puts ZCG's assets at about $125 million.

Bowe said ZCG's funds are already sufficient to cover years of spending, that the program was never designed to handle funds of this scale, and that continuing to pile money into its separate custody and governance arrangements increases risk. A dashboard shows ZCG holds about 91,453 ZEC and $8.8 million, of which $2.4 million has been committed to grantees; at the network's target rate it receives about 144 ZEC per day, worth roughly $68 million a year, while the Financial Privacy Foundation, which manages ZCG's funds, spent only slightly more than $1.5 million on projects in the first quarter. The proposal does not mention the recently controversial ZECsy outreach grant program, has no effective date, and would require changes to Zcash network rules. Until such changes take effect, ZCG's allocation continues at about 144 ZEC per day.