Zcoin Governance and Development past 4 years

Zcoin is now more than 2 years old! So much time has passed but it does mean that Founder’s Rewards and Dev Fund (a combined total of 14%) will be ending in slightly less than 2 years time.

Although we still have some ways to go, Poramin and I decided that it would be good to discuss the future and have at least a community consensus on the direction we will be heading to before the end of 2019 so that we can implement it in 2020.

Current:
56% Miners
14% Founder’s Reward
30% Znodes

By default, when Zcoin’s Founder’s reward ends they are then given entirely to miners for this breakdown (though note reward halving).

70% Miners
30% Znodes

There are two questions that need to be answered:

  1. Should there be a dev fund and if so how many percent?
  2. How should it be governed?

We hope this thread opens up meaningful discussions with our community members.

5 Likes

I decided to post my own personal views in a separate thread.

As to question 1, both Poramin’s and my view is that it is required still until the project has sufficient interest to stand on its own without funding but it should be governed by the community in any case. If the community is happy with us, we can continue but if not, we can be replaced.

As for question 2, this is the more tricky bit.

I am very against a pure Znode voting mechanism that is used in Dash. It allows whales and/or the devs to dictate the entire direction of the coin and is only false governance. There is no cost to voting and as Znode prices go up, new people do not have a voice.

Before we decide on a mechanism I think it is helpful to highlight what I think are essential elements that a mechanism would need to solve:
a) Encourages voter participation but not voting for the sake of voting or getting rewards
b) The general community can participate not just an elite few
c) Anonymous but verifiable voting
d) An elected independent board to guide and help vet proposals

Things we also need to consider
a) Should votes be easy to pass or hard? Easy to pass makes it nimble but hard to pass makes it only possible to make changes that have wide support.
b) Should voting be free (or almost free) or cost something?
c) Should there be different groups of voters (miners, Znode holders, board?) So for e.g. you can combine masternode voting with miners also signalling their votes via PoW.

Will continue more later.

4 Likes

I would recommend, let the founders reward expire at the appointed time. Fund the dev team at 5 to 10% of the reward, to ensure that it will have ongoing development.

A zcoin foundation non profit could be established and appointed as the organization that hires the dev team, does community outreach, etc.

3 Likes

Very good initiative Reuben and the team of Zcoin. I do think that you are right to anticipate the end of the founders’ remunerations. For my part, I think that remuneration should be balanced: 45% for Znodes and 45% for minors. And there should be 10% for governance with a voting system for masternodes AND minors. Users and holders of Zcoin should also be able to vote. It is important that all stakeholders participate in the governance of the project.

To answer your proposal (or your personal opinion), I think the vote must be paid but very cheap.

I agree with this 100%

Other coins that weigh the vote on how much of that coin you hold are dictated by the developers and early adopters. It makes the everyday user not interested in voting at all.

70% for miners will for sure encourage them to choose Zcoin.
I would pick a more equitable system though with increasing Znode block reward to 35%, miners 60% and keep 5% to Zcoin foundation for safety.

If the project is stable and ok without any Zcoins’s founders reward, then a 65% miners 35% Znode would be great.

Maybe Zcoin’s founders own some Znodes to secure themself.

I would argue that a 6% Dev Fee should be inplace to keep the coin going in the right direction. I would then split the reward 5% mIners and 3% masternodes.

2 Likes

I would the let the Masternode owners vote on how the Dev fee shale be spent.

1 Like

How about an electoral college style voting? Those who hold lots of znodes can be too concentrated and a few can own too much voting power.

Just like voting based on popular votes put too much power in concentrated areas like major US cities, electoral college was created. Electoral voting mechanism seems a bit complex to explain, researching how it works is definitely needed. Popular voting is easy to implement but results will be biased toward who holds most znodes. I think electoral voting is the better solution.

How would you enforce an electoral style voting? Location is out I suppose so how do you form the colleges?

I am not sure what a paid vote would achieve. On the countrary, I think it would be detrimental to participation. Your goal should be to attain the widest participation possible and a paid vote would definitly hinder that a lot. Taking other governance models as reference, currently most cryptocurrencies that have governance suffer greatly from a lack of participation.

So I would in fact argue the oposite: reward a vote. Take a couple % of that founder rewards and accumulate them in a fund that will be distributed to all voters would be my proposal.

On the subject of dev fund: having a dev fund is reasonable. I’d argue for a 6% dev fund, 1% voting reward, 4% to miners, 3% to Masternodes. (not hellbent on numbers, can obv be tweaked to favor one or the other category. Other example: 7% dev fund, 2% voting reward, 3% miners, 2% MN)

Im curious to hear what are the arguments in favor of paid voting? I dont see how that helps avoiding current Dash problems.

Founders Reward definitely expires. But should the dev team be centrally managed or be community voted/elected?

One of the worries with rewarding voting mechanisms, is that I don’t want people to vote just to get a reward without making careful considerations of the proposal at hand.

However I guess we can reward voting but also reward ‘Neutral’ votes so that you get voter participation but they are not forced to pick a side.

3 Likes

One of the governance models I found really interesting and maybe we can draw some ideas from it is the Iroquois Confederacy which balances the power of those with majority and those with minority.

I think it’s a very interesting idea whereby smaller players are the ‘gatekeepers’ and tiebreakers that balances also the power between the larger powers. I recommend people to spend some of their time to watch this.

1 Like

Hello Zcoiners!

Regarding Founder’s reward, i think that enough is enough boys!
The founders have already turned their rewards into Znodes!!
We mine for them their cut!! Then they turn it into Znodes and keep getting paid.
I assume that all founders have multiple nodes.
I calculated that with all the mining i have done 2 years now i have personally mined approx. a nodes’ worth(1000 coins!) for Roger Ver!

I say enough!
You have all turned the coins we mined for you into nodes and you will keep getting paid.
Turn some of these nodes into “Founders Znodes” that will pay for any expenses or for any newcomer dev.

P.S.: Tell Roger Ver to pump the coin or get the hell out! He is a dark spot for our coin and he offers nothing but bad reputation!

2 Likes

Centrally managed. The community has tremendous respect and trust in Reuben and the zcoin team. A centrally managed team can accomplish more, faster, and with tighter focus.

1 Like

then 65% Miners 35% Znodes would be great.

1 Like

The challenge I see right now for Zcoin is about spreading the word and focusing on adoption. We hear about development and new features, but rarely about the roadmap to gain wider adoption.

Even if it was to focus solely on one country to start with (Thailand for example), that laser focus on onboarding new merchants and creating public awareness would go a long way. There should be full time employees focused 100% on the sales aspect and onboarding of new merchants. The more merchants they on-board, the more they get paid. Results based compensation scheme.

Based on the average salaries in South East Asia, the founders reward is PLENTY big to support a dedicated sales team.

If adoption does not increase rapidly, it doesn’t matter what governance model is in place because the whole system will implode due to Zcoin’s inability to pay their people.

From a governance standpoint, I would recommend electing the equivalent of a ´Board of directors’ that would be named and respected professionals operating in different fields, but know about sales and distribution in Asia. These would be unpaid positions (except for travel expenses when meetings are required). Their job would be to vote on budget allocation to support the adoption of Zcoin. That budget would be funded from the founders reward.

6 Likes

I see too many people taking Zcoin for a Zcash duplicate. In all anon reports last 6 month i hardly saw Zcoin mentioned 'cause of that… Even when they mention other “low caps” coins like Horizen.
It’s a problem in my opinion even if i love the current name.

Zerocoin is alawys mentionned for Zcash. At least Lelantus will change that.

1 Like