Starting in November 2020, the further development of the Zcash ecosystem will be covered by a development fund.
Seven percent of the fund will be contributed to the Electric Coin Company, five percent to the Zcash Foundation, and eight percent to third parties that make a significant contribution to Zcash’s progress.

Zcash was launched in 2016. Since then, further development has been financed by the Founders Reward, which will continue to be distributed until the end of this year. Of all Zcash Miner Rewards, 80% have been distributed to the miners and approximately 15% to a select group of individuals, including the founders and early investors.

The remaining 5% was distributed to the Electric Coin Company (EEC), the company responsible for the development of Zcash. However, the Founders Reward expires in November 2020, so a new way to raise funds for the further development of Zcash had to be found.

The community has now reached an agreement that the Founders Reward will not be renewed. After numerous new suggestions were discussed in the community, a survey by the Zcash Foundation was able to achieve a result. The community voted to create a new development fund, which provides for 20% of the Miner Reward to flow into the fund, while the Miners continue to receive 80% of the Reward.

This arrangement will take effect from November 2020 (Block 1,046,400). The Miners Reward will also be halved at that time, similar to the Bitcoin halving that will take place in May this year. The development fund will be distributed 7% to the ECC, 5% to the Zcash Foundation and 8% to third parties that contribute significantly to the progress of Zcash.

Participants who receive financial support must comply with formal accountability and reporting requirements to demonstrate the efforts for which the funds raised have been used. This is intended to increase both decentralization and transparency.

Furthermore, the Zcash Foundation has determined that the Zcash brand may not be used independently by either party, but requires the consent of both parties. The agreements reached will be written in a ZIP (Zcash Improvement Proposal) and codified in Network Upgrade 4. The new ZIP is to be activated in November 2020.

Zcash had already discussed important decisions with the community in the past via surveys in order to find decentralization and a common basis for decision-making that reflects the consensus of the community and not a few Zcash whales. ZIP 1014 was introduced in mid-December 2019 and already included some of the community’s ideas from the results of the last survey.

Zcash drives development of shielded transactions

Recently ECC introduced an upgrade of the Zcash Android SDK and a new iOS package. By using the SDK it will be possible for wallet developers like Jaxx, Guarda, Trust Wallet, Coinomi and Atomic Wallet to implement shielded transactions with the so called “z-addresses”. This allows the Zcash transaction addresses as well as the amount and notes to be hidden.

Europol recently confirmed that it is not possible to track transactions from Monero. The use of privacy coins has increased significantly in recent months as more and more users of cryptocurrencies place great value on privacy and data protection. Dash has seen strong growth in Venezuela in recent weeks, as transactions can be processed more cheaply and quickly compared to traditional online banking.

From May to December there has been a 562% increase in active android devices using #Dash wallet app in #Venezuela 🇻🇪 Growth for December was 29% 📈🚀

This is NOT total installs, 'active devices' shows how many devices that have been online at least once in the past 30 days. pic.twitter.com/06v6jtYPbN

— Mark Mason | markmason.btc (@StayDashy) January 20, 2020

The price of Zcash follows the current market trend, rising 10.95% in the last 24 hours to $61.67 USD.

Future of Zcash resolved: Development fund will be established

Marcel Knobloch