The Zcash development fund has reached $95 million, driven by ZEC token appreciation, sparking sharp disagreement over whether the fund should expire when its mandate ends in 2028.
Haseeb Qureshi, managing partner at Dragonfly, argued for sunsetting the fund entirely. "I'm of the opinion that this should be the final Dev Fund," he said on X, citing sufficient accumulated capital for remaining development work and warning that the fund risks becoming "politicized" as it approaches $100 million.
According to ZecStats, the fund currently holds 63,962 ZEC tokens and accrues 0.1875 ZEC per block—12 percent of the block subsidy under NU6. The balance remains off-chain until governance disbursement.
Matt Huang, founder of Paradigm, disagreed. He cited advances in AI capabilities and quantum computing progress as reasons to maintain development funding. Both Qureshi and Huang converged on governance structure, opposing pure token holder voting. Qureshi advocated for temporary councils elected by token holders; Huang proposed a hybrid model balancing community input with institutional stability, warning that pure token voting could introduce "unpredictability that could limit long-term trust as a monetary asset."
Maxime Desalle, investment analyst at Winklevoss Capital, took a harder line, recommending the Zcash community "completely get rid" of the development fund to resolve governance disputes entirely. In a Sept. 9 X post, Desalle contended the fund could harm Zcash security and recreate bureaucratic dependencies.
Zcash founder Zooko Wilcox offered historical context. On Sept. 1, he credited the Zcash Community Grants Committee—which comprises 40 percent of the development fund—as central to Zcash's "survival and growth." He reiterated this point Sept. 14.
