Zcash turns ten as Sean Bowe proposes redirecting automatic grants funding

A proposal separate from the tenth anniversary

Zcash reaches its tenth anniversary this October 28 amid debate over ecosystem funding. Sean Bowe prepared a draft improvement proposal on October 26 and made it public through a change request to the official repository the following day. Its aim is to stop the automatic funding stream for Zcash Community Grants, or ZCG, and redirect the remaining allocation to the Network Sustainability Mechanism, known as the NSM.

The document remains a draft. It has no final number, assigned activation height or reference implementation. Crucially, it says it is not included in the NU7 network upgrade as currently specified. The anniversary therefore marks no change in network rules. To take effect, the proposal would need to be reviewed, incorporated into a later upgrade and accompanied by deployment parameters.

ZCG would keep funds already allocated

The draft targets future payments corresponding to 8% of the block subsidy. It does not seek to recover assets ZCG has already received and leaves the rules governing that treasury unchanged. The program could therefore meet existing commitments and continue making grants from its resources. The distinction matters: stopping an automatic revenue stream and abolishing a program while seizing its reserves would be two different decisions.

The funding model described in ZIP 1016 separates the community voice represented by ZCG from that of coinholders. It provides another 12% stream for a fund controlled by the latter. Bowe’s proposal preserves that allocation and its duration. It changes only the destination of the relevant share during the remainder of its existing term, without automatically extending that period. Dollar estimates of the treasury depend on the assumed ZEC price and should not be treated as reserves held entirely in cash.

The NSM would organize reissuance over time

The receiving mechanism has its own specification, ZIP 237. Its principle is to account for a reserve removed from circulation and gradually reissue part of it through future block subsidies. It preserves the protocol’s periodic subsidy reductions and issuance cap. Under Bowe’s draft, redirected amounts would be credited directly to that reserve rather than paid to a ZCG address.

This route is neither an immediate distribution to ZEC holders nor an additional amount miners could freely claim at the time of redirection. The document imposes calculation and accounting rules to keep amounts consistent. The question under discussion is how future funding should be used: continue automatically building a discretionary treasury or direct that share toward a protocol-defined mechanism. Existing rules remain applicable until a network upgrade activates such a change.