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Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has urged the Zcash community to avoid token-weighted governance, warning that such a shift could weaken the project’s privacy model over time. His comments arrive as Zcash stakeholders discuss future governance structures, committee elections and the role of on-chain voting in a rapidly changing market.
In a post on X dated 30 November 2025, Buterin said he hopes Zcash “resists the dark hand of token voting.” He argued that coin-weighted voting performs poorly when a protocol depends on protecting long-term public goods such as privacy.
He stated that token voting is “worse than Zcash’s status quo” and warned that privacy may erode if decisions follow the preferences of the “median token holder.” His remarks echo earlier analyses in which he criticised coin-holder governance for encouraging short-term incentives and concentrating power in large holders.
Researchers have highlighted similar weaknesses in decentralized governance systems. Studies of DeFi protocols show low voter participation, heavy concentration of voting power and vulnerability to governance attacks that exploit transferable tokens and flash loans.
Recent work on privacy in weighted voting also shows that, even with secret ballots, public tallies can expose individual choices when a few “whales” hold most voting power. Those findings support Buterin’s concern that token voting can sit at odds with strong privacy guarantees.
Zcash currently uses the Zcash Improvement Proposal (ZIP) process and the Zcash Community Advisory Panel (ZCAP) for protocol governance, rather than token-weighted on-chain voting. Anyone may submit a draft ZIP, which the community then debates, while ZIP editors from Electric Coin Company and the Zcash Foundation coordinate specification changes.
The Zcash Foundation manages ZCAP, which polls a broad set of community members on major questions, including board appointments and funding priorities. ZCAP input also guides elections to the Zcash Community Grants (ZCG) committee.
ZCG operates as a five-member grants committee that reviews proposals and allocates development funding from the dev fund slice dedicated to community grants. The committee makes decisions independently, although the Foundation can veto grants that conflict with legal or reporting obligations.
According to statements shared in the current governance discussion, long-standing participants, including ZCG member Zooko Wilcox, emphasise continuity and discipline as ZEC’s price and available funding rise. They describe a growing volume of questionable grant applications and frame strict review standards as essential to maintaining quality and supporting long-term contributors.
These comments appear as the community prepares for the next ZCG election cycle. Candidates highlight independence from external influence, transparent decision-making and careful treatment of new resources as key themes for voters assessing future committee membership.
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The debate around Buterin’s warning has expanded beyond Zcash. Commentators such as investor Naval Ravikant argue that trusted intermediaries will remain part of any governance model and call for on-chain, privacy-preserving mechanisms to coordinate decisions. In contrast, Zcash community member Darklight supports trustless ledgers for settlement but maintains that research and funding choices still require human judgment.
Darklight describes ZCG as a filter that screens out low-quality or opportunistic funding requests. He also warns that fully on-chain funding flows can drift toward capital domination or voter apathy when most token holders do not follow complex technical debates. Those concerns mirror academic findings that delegation and visibility biases can push DAOs toward a small group of influential delegates whose priorities may not match those of the wider community.
The discussion unfolds against a backdrop of renewed interest in Zcash. ZEC has rallied sharply in recent months, with research firms and market analysts linking the move to privacy narratives, reduced liquid supply and new funding “lockbox” mechanisms that accumulate development capital in community-controlled addresses.
Analysts note that Zcash’s current governance already avoids token voting by design. The project instead channels sentiment through ZIPs, ZCAP polls and ZCG decisions. Any attempt to introduce token-weighted voting would likely appear first in new ZIP drafts and Zcash Foundation governance announcements, making those channels a key focus for both community members and market participants watching governance risk in ZEC.
