very interesting reading. i agree with @paulbrigner these are valid concerns related to the lack of clear policies regarding the proposed destination for the ZCG funding stream (legal defense funding and the other one). i also agree with the need of having a balanced system that doesn't exclude valuable community contributors who don't hold big bags. it's important. fwiw, paul is a valuable long-term zcash contributor and has been under personal attacks during the current governance wars pushed mostly by the winklevoss and their employees/allies. they have engaged in what looks like coordinated character assassination attempts against paul and others, trying to discredit them, to discredit ZCG. these are not only ad-hominem logical fallacies, but they are also a disgusting political tactic that is (if it wasn't bad enough already) based on what now seem fake premises -- as paul properly addressed at the end of this article. worth the reading. onward.

massive respect for this ethos and culture. it's a minority of companies that truly respect freedom of speech and don't punish employees for what they think and/or say in governance wars like the one we are seeing happening. this is extremely important for a company building in a decentralized, community-driven ecosystem -- as employees will inevitably have different opinion and want to participate in the governance discussions and they are community members, users, and coinholders first and foremost. they have skin in the game. hats-off to @jswihart for that. this is a feature, not a bug as some are making it to be.

today is a good day to remember what zcash is meant to be: • peer-to-peer, digital cash. • a decentralized network ruled by an open-source protocol. • freedom money for everyone., with strong privacy properties. onward.

good to see tyler finally taking part in this discussion with his account. debating is important, especially around this proposal with so many conflicting interests in play. that's a lot of words that don't mean much, though plenty of logical fallacies. i'll try to answer ↓ > "comparing ZCG to mining" the comparison here is regarding ZCG being an inherent, consensus-based, part of zcash economics and protocols rules (which everyone can verify without trust). it was there when he arrived. i think it’s fair to argue the ZCG mechanism is imperfect and needs improvement (accountability, incentives, etc.). i wouldn’t hate changes, and i’ve said as much in other threads. i just think community-driven funding has played an important role in developing and promoting zcash as usable freedom/privacy money rather than purely a revenue stream for highly capitalized mining/trading enterprises. that said, this is my opinion and happy to agree to disagree. objectively speaking, ZCG is under the same rules of mining from a protocol perspective. both the mining and ZCG portions are protocol-defined allocations of the block subsidy. they have their own set of rules and allocation is done accordingly. some data is available on: openzcash(dot)org framing it as USAID or charity (as i saw some people who work for him doing) is a terrible framing and works as political propaganda, but is far from reality. it only confuses people who are new to zcash. we need clarity instead. --- see what i'm doing? i'm correctly framing what is my opinion and what is objective fact. where his post breaks down is mixing both -- presenting his opinion as facts. some examples: > “the purest market-based competition imaginable” mining is described as “the purest market-based competition imaginable” with perfect risk/reward alignment and no structural issues. in practice, however, PoW exhibits strong economies of scale (ASIC capital intensity, energy contracts, bulk hardware pricing, pool aggregation). this is not theoretical: recent analysis shows persistent concentration (e.g., Cambridge CCAF’s Oct 2026 report on Bitcoin: top 3 pools ~60.8% of blocks, top 6 ~83% over a recent sample, with effective control higher due to proxy arrangements). large operators capture more of the reward, reinvest in more specialized hardware, and smaller ones get priced out. this does the opposite of strengthening decentralization. it gradually centralized any network that gets mature enough into a few miners. bitcoin is the empirical evidence. capital is tied to equipment that can be pointed elsewhere or sold, weakening long-term “skin in the game” relative to the network itself. i’ve written extensively about these dynamics before. pure PoW has repeatedly shown this path. > “ZCG is a choice / optional / not existential” while mining is not. this is a logical fallacy. both are consensus rules and choices. the protocol can change either (via ZIPs and upgrades, exactly as it has done multiple times with the dev fund). mining is a choice of consensus mechanism too. many networks have moved away from pure PoW for the same scalability, energy, and centralization reasons. calling one “ontological” and the other a “slush fund with zero consequences” is rhetoric, not a technical distinction, which is funny coming from someone starting the post with the silly ad-hominem he launched ("either intellectually dishonest or intellectually illiterate."). if the dollars from either are “incinerated,” the protocol still produces the next block under the same rules. miners "incinerate" their capital too, to pay for energy, infra, work force, etc. it's a highly capital-intensive activity. what he says about ZCG on that is also not true. if capital is "incinerated" (in a pejorative way), there will sure be consequences. everything is well-documented. i agree it's a different form of accountability, though. > “no skin in the game / no consequences / coinholders have no say.” governance and accountability can and should be improved (i’ve agreed with some of the concerns raised during his campaign). but the money is allocated by protocol to the program, the same way mining rewards are allocated to the miner who finds the block. dilution is real and has economic effects. it is not the same as shared ownership or “coinholders’ money.” (also claimed by the people campaigning about it in his name). treating protocol allocations as other people’s money that must be reclaimed is an entitlement framing that have weakened the case as is and worked only to divide the community. which has become mostly noise, imo, when there are so many things we should be worrying about. for more numbers and context on the mining side (including Cypherpunk’s share and the incentives around redirecting emission), anyone can see my earlier post on that (dropping it in the comments). happy to discuss concrete mechanism improvements or alternative designs (including hybrids like crosslink). the framing that treats one consensus-enforced allocation as pure and the other as illegitimate charity doesn’t advance that. we can all be better than that.

Brazil's largest private bank started supporting 15 cryptocurrencies. neither $ZEC or $NEAR are in the list. (i) Itaú NGMI (ii) this is how early we still are in CT higher.

i strongly recommend everyone in crypto to read @HijackingBTC it's a well-documented piece of history that can teach us a lot it may also become increasingly relevant to some communities like zcash, while positioning zcash:native as "encrypted bitcoin" and following some historical steps as a previously marginalized project going mainstream and gathering support from some big players if anything, it will be an entertaining read (at worst), but who knows... we might learn some valuable historical lessons that could become relevant one day @laeterna_v also has a very good video documentary on the topic published on yt before the book that i'll drop the link to it in the comment section big shoutout to the bitcoin-cash:native community for putting this together and fighting the good fight during bitcoin block wars (with a massive disadvantage, as the other group strongly dominated the means of communication and community forums at that time)

what a terrible way to frame the zcash dev fund. @tyler is comparing protocol-funded, community-driven developments to the USAID, as if it were some kind of charity by the all-mighty US companies. i agree the dev fund needs improvements, but this is the wrong way to advocate for it. pure propaganda fueled by a US-centric mindset and protagonist syndrome. from a protocol perspective, the dev fund is as "USAID" as mining. it's part of ZEC's tokenomics. all very well documented. mining funds network security via protocol emission. the dev fund funds community-driven initiatives. both add value to zcash:native and are needed for zcash to survive and grow. it's important to understand that the plan is to end the dev fund to redirect its share (20% from the whole dev fund or 8% from the ZCG part) of protocol emission to miners. it's also important to understand that tyler and his twin made a huge investment in mining equipment via @cypherpunk a few months ago to become zcash's largest miner, controling aproximately 18% of the network's hashrate and block producing (which means receiving ~18% of the mining share of protocol emissions). moving the dev fund's share to mining directly benefits his enterprise.

there is a movement surging in the zcash ecosystem that believes "morality" should rule what independent, community-driven initiatives should/shouldn't receive funds from protocol emissions. not merit. not results. morality. this is a dangerous movement for a project like ZEC.

some people are mad about the $ZEC dev fund funding projects like this one (quoted post). these people call themselves privacy + freedom advocates, but they are now only proving themselves as privacy/freedom larpers. dev fund exists to fund community initiatives that would hardly receive funding from traditional methods (like in seed/private investment rounds). the dev fund exists to fund development and foment zcash adoption as freedom + privacy-enabling money among different communities and geolocations. especially for those who need it the most. zcash is money for everyone. even for the people you (for some reason) hate. if funding adoption awareness among a group of people who really needs privacy/freedom money is the death for zcash, then zcash deserves this death. it isn't, though. it's the very reason why zcash exists in the first place. many zcash supporters (especially the ogs) understand that. those who believe zcash is privacy/freedom money are not only not bothered about this, but understand the importance of funding and promoting zec for groups that are more exposed to social/political persecution. and they are excited about more people getting to now and use zec. most people opposing it are tourists, speculators, and extractors. they want zec to go up in price, but they do not support the mission of building freedom/privacy money for everyone. big difference. the thing they ignore is that zec's ability to sustainably go up in price depends on its adoption. and it means that some people they don't like will end up using the coin. if supporting "highly polarizing groups" (as i saw some people describing this initiative) is wrong, there is no reason for zcash to exist. it's meant exactly for highly-polarizing and maginalized groups. onward.

To be honest: only the losing side accuses an election of fraud. No one complains when their candidate wins. An old tactic. Beware of being manipulated as a disposable pawn on a board where the same person controls both sides’ pieces. Change the king, not the player.