Zcash holders will vote from November 16 to November 30 on a governance proposal that could remove 50,000 ZEC from the Zcash Community Grants treasury and shift the value toward future mining rewards.
The draft improvement proposal—authored by co-founders Sean Bowe and Zooko Wilcox alongside Jason McGee—was merged into the specifications repository on Wednesday. Based on an October snapshot, the 50,000 ZEC represents roughly 55% of the 91,453 ZEC held in the grants treasury.
If approved and later activated through a network upgrade, Zcash Community Grants would be required to remove the coins from circulation within 30 days. That value would be credited to the Network Sustainability Mechanism, a reserve activated under the NU7 upgrade that gradually returns ZEC through future block rewards. The proposal would also end ZCG's current 8% share of newly created Zcash coins, redirecting those allocations into a Future Dev and Legal Defense Fund until the next halving event.
Supporters argue the treasury has grown large enough to fund years of grants, while the reallocation could strengthen incentives for miners. Under the proposed framework, the new reserve would initially have no spending rules; a separate proposal would be required to establish withdrawal mechanisms. ZCG would keep its remaining treasury and continue grant distributions, and the separate 12% Coinholder-Controlled Fund would remain unchanged.
Using an assumed ZEC price of $1,300 and first-half 2026 spending figures, the draft estimates the existing treasury could cover about 13 years of expenses. If the 50,000 ZEC reallocation is approved, roughly six years of funding capacity would remain under those assumptions. Organizers plan to review November polling for rough consensus before any implementation, with community support, a network upgrade and further engineering work still required.
