Zcash community members are debating the protocol's development fund after ZEC's rally pushed its value above $95 million. Dragonfly managing partner Haseeb Qureshi proposed winding down the fund when its current rules expire in 2028, arguing it holds sufficient capital for remaining development work and risks becoming politicized as its value approaches $100 million.
According to ZecStats, the development fund holds 63,962 ZEC tokens, valued at approximately $95 million at press time. The lockbox accrues 0.1875 ZEC per block—12 percent of the block subsidy under the NU6 upgrade.
Paradigm founder Matt Huang disagreed, arguing Zcash should maintain the fund given advancements in AI cyber capabilities and rapid quantum progress. He cautioned that pure token holder governance could introduce unpredictability that limits long-term trust as a monetary asset and proposed a hybrid model combining additional oversight.
Qureshi echoed concerns about token-holder-only voting, supporting instead a partial model where token holders elect temporary councils. Huang agreed with this governance structure.
Maxime Desalle, an investment analyst at Winklevoss Capital, took a more aggressive stance: completely eliminate the development fund to resolve all governance disputes. Desalle previously argued on Sept. 9 that the fund might compromise Zcash's security and recreate bureaucratic dependencies similar to welfare-state structures.
Zcash founder Zooko Wilcox highlighted the Zcash Community Grants Committee as central to the protocol's survival and growth. On Sept. 14, Wilcox clarified that this committee accounts for 40 percent of the total development fund.
