Zcash co-founder proposes ending ZCG’s 8% block reward allocation and redirecting it to NSM
Zcash co-founder Sean Bowe has published a draft ZIP proposal that would end the automatic 8% block subsidy allocation to Zcash Community Grants, or ZCG, and redirect that share to the Network Sustainability Mechanism, known as NSM. The proposal is built around the size of ZCG’s existing treasury, which Bowe said holds about 91,452.98 ZEC, valued at roughly $125 million at current fair market prices. In his view, that stockpile is already large enough to cover milestone payments for projects in progress and to support ecosystem development for years without continued per-block funding from the protocol. Under the current ZIP 1014 developer fund framework, 20% of each Zcash block reward goes to the developer fund, with 8% of the block reward automatically routed to ZCG. Bowe’s draft would stop that flow at a future hard fork activation height. During the transition period before the current developer fund stream expires, the same 8% share would instead be sent in full to the NSM reserve. The draft does not alter ownership of ZCG’s existing assets or its current governance process, meaning the committee would still be able to fund open-source tools, privacy infrastructure and audit teams from its present treasury.
