Zcash: a draft ZIP to establish a ZCG Treasury Committee

A draft ZIP posted by emersonian on the Zcash Community Forum on 9 November 2026 would require Zcash Community Grants (ZCG) to form a separate Treasury Committee, which alone could buy, sell or convert ZEC, hedge, and set ZCG's budgets. The ZIP says that at present the ZCG Committee both chooses grants and decides, with the Financial Privacy Foundation (FPF), how ZCG's funds are held and when ZEC is sold. The ZIP has no number and no vote, and it is not on the November polls about ZCG's share of the Dev Fund.

What it changes

• A Treasury Committee of at least three members, set up within 45 days after the ZIP becomes Active. ZCAP selects every member with the process it uses for the ZCG Committee, for one-year terms (some first terms may be six months), and sets their pay. The ZCG Committee and FPF may not appoint members.
• No one may sit on both committees, no one on the ZCG Committee when the ZIP becomes Active may ever be appointed, and a majority must have no association with FPF.
• Removal only on a public motion, after at least 14 days for the member to respond, by two-thirds of votes cast in a ZCAP vote in which at least half of ZCAP takes part.
• Treasury Decisions belong to the Treasury Committee alone: trading or converting ZEC and other assets, asset allocation, hedging, counterparties, the yearly Program Budget and the Treasury Plan. They need no approval from the ZCG Committee or FPF's board, but FPF can veto one that would violate Cayman Islands law or FPF's reporting requirements or other obligations, and must publish its reasons.
• The ZCG Committee keeps grant decisions, requests for proposals, milestones and Discretionary Budget disbursements, but may not approve commitments that would exceed the Program Budget.
• Until the Treasury Committee exists, the ZCG Committee may not decide to buy, sell or convert ZEC, or set or change any budget. FPF may convert ZEC only to pay approved grant installments and administration expenses due within the next 30 days, at or shortly before payment.
• A Treasury Plan by 31 March 2027 (60 days after formation if the committee is formed after 30 January 2027), updated every 31 March from 2028: a budget for each year to 2036, at least three ZEC price scenarios including a fall of at least 75% with no recovery, a treasury policy, and a hedging strategy that may not increase ZCG's exposure to the price of ZEC.
• Converting, moving or hedging ZCG's funds, done under these rules and reported in the next quarterly report, does not take them out of its restricted fund.
• Members disclose their ZEC holdings, may not trade ZEC while they know of a Treasury Decision not yet executed and disclosed, and publish minutes within 14 days; a planned trade may be withheld until executed.

It does not change how much accrues to ZCG or how the ZCG Committee is selected, nor decide whether a later ZIP, upgrade or vote can take funds ZCG already holds.

The case for it

The ZIP's motivation: ZCG holds mostly ZEC while many grantees understand their grants in US dollars, and its funding stream is scheduled to end at the third halving, expected in late 2028. "A fall in the price of ZEC can therefore reduce ZCG's ability to fund work by a large fraction within months, with no change to any ZIP."

It argues that choosing grants and managing a treasury are different skills, and that combining them creates conflicts: "a committee under pressure to fund a popular grant may sell ZEC at a poor time, and a committee that decides when ZCG sells ZEC has information that could be misused."

On 11 November emersonian described the aim of this first draft: "What I'm going for in this first draft is consensus that we should form a team to propose a treasury plan, however it develops, and that the team should be different from the granting committee."

The objections

In the poll timeline thread, replying to emersonian, nuttycom wrote on 11 November that "it's my belief that a 10-year time horizon is insufficiently aggressive", adding: "In the startup world, you essentially never attempt to make a 10-year plan because too much changes over 10 years for such a plan to be meaningful." emersonian cross-posted the comment to the ZIP's thread the same day and replied: "I'd support a non-linear budget schedule that's more aggressive upfront."

Where it stands

The ZIP is an unnumbered Draft, created on 8 November 2026, that would amend ZIP 1015. Pull request 1453, opened on 9 November, is open with no reviews or comments as of 12 November 2026, and the forum thread has two posts, both by emersonian.

emersonian posted it with five other governance ZIPs just after the 8 November deadline for the NU7.1 polls. On 9 November aquietinvestor wrote, for the organisations coordinating the polls, that "we've decided to uphold the deadline and exclude these proposals from this round of polling". Those polls run from 16 to 30 November 2026, and their draft questions include the Future Dev and Legal Defense Fund ZIP and ZAP.

The draft lists open questions, among them whether 45 days is enough to select the first members and whether the ZIP can become Active by mid-December 2026, which the 31 March 2027 deadline needs. No vote on this ZIP has been scheduled.