Zcash holders to vote on pulling 50,000 ZEC, worth $50 million, from grants treasury
Zcash holders and community panels will vote November 16-30 on a proposal to remove 50,000 ZEC from the network's grants treasury and return its 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 November 16 and run through November 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.
Treasury Redistribution Plan
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.
Background and Next Steps
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.
Using its October treasury snapshot, an assumed ZEC price of $1,300 and spending from the first half of 2026, the draft estimates ZCG could cover about 13 years of expenses. Removing 50,000 ZEC would leave roughly six years under those assumptions.
The proposal still needs community support and a network upgrade. Organizers will assess whether the November polls show 'rough consensus' before engineering teams and miners work toward a follow-up upgrade known as NU7.1. No activation height has been set, and the draft lists no reference implementation.
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