Zcash’s $125M grants fight: ZCG offers $46M back as Winklevoss pushes coinholder rule

The five-member Zcash Community Grants committee proposed moving 36,200 ZEC, worth about $46 million, from its roughly 91,500-ZEC treasury into the Network Sustainability Mechanism, a protocol reserve designed to take ZEC out of circulation temporarily and later direct it to miners across decades. The committee receives 8% of block rewards, a share that grew valuable after ZEC’s price rose 48-fold over three years and that it conceded exceeds its needs; it also committed another 62,000 ZEC in future funding. Critics including Helius co-founder Mert Mumtaz and Gemini co-founder Tyler Winklevoss called the refund insufficient and pushed for control by ZEC holders, while opponents said token-weighted votes would concentrate power among the largest wallets.