Zcash co-founder proposes ending grants subsidy, citing $125 million treasury

Zcash co-founder Sean Bowe on Monday submitted a proposal seeking to end automatic funding for the Zcash Community Grants program and redirect its remaining 8% share of block subsidies to the network's Network Sustainability Mechanism.

"It's time to turn off the ZCG funding stream," Bowe wrote on X. "ZCG has over $125M in funding, and will receive millions more before the spigot is turned off. The program was never designed to handle this amount of funding."

The proposal comes nearly six years after the program was introduced as Zcash Open Major Grants in 2020. Builders seeking funding can access it through open grants or invite-only grants, with approvals cleared by a five-person committee elected by the Zcash Zcash (ZEC) community.

According to the draft proposal, ZCG holds 91,452.98 ZEC and approximately $8.8 million in U.S. dollar-denominated assets, against $2.4 million in outstanding grant liabilities. Bowe said the existing 8% allocation model can yield over $68 million in ZEC annually, way above the $1.53 million in ZCG expenses reported by the Financial Privacy Foundation for the first quarter of 2026.

If approved, the proposal would redirect the allocation to the NSM for the remainder of the existing funding stream's term without increasing Zcash’s issued supply, per the draft.

Meanwhile, a separate 12% allocation to the Coinholder-Controlled Fund would remain unchanged, Bowe said. ZCG would still retain control of its existing assets and could continue approving grants and meeting outstanding commitments, he added.

The proposal has no assigned activation height and is not included in the currently specified NU7 network upgrade. It would require a future network upgrade to take effect.

Zcash changed hands at around $1,248 on Tuesday, up 2% over the past 24 hours, according to The Block's ZEC price page.