TL;DR
- Qureshi wants the current Zcash Dev Fund to end in 2028, arguing its roughly $95 million balance can cover remaining protocol development needs.
- Huang defends inflation-funded support for public goods, while Desalle argues subsidies weaken miner incentives, alternative financing and governance by encouraging recurring dependence on grants.
- The dispute reaches governance and its “encrypted Bitcoin” identity, as holders back faster blocks and halvings while Qureshi favors representatives over tokenholder voting.
Haseeb Qureshi has sharpened the debate over how Zcash should finance protocol development, arguing that the current Dev Fund should be the last and should expire under existing rules in 2028. Qureshi believes the fund has grown large enough to finish the work still ahead, with 63,962 ZEC valued at roughly $95 million. The fund currently receives 0.1875 ZEC per block, equal to 12% of the block subsidy under NU6, while its balance remains outside circulation until governance approves distributions. Rising ZEC prices have suddenly made that structure far harder to ignore now.
On the $ZEC Dev Fund debate:
The Zcash community has decided its identity is “encrypted Bitcoin.” It has rejected adding more bells and whistles to the protocol. To become encrypted Bitcoin, Zcash must become a dependable store of value, and that means eventually ossifying.
But…
— Haseeb Qureshi ＞|＜ (@hosseeb) September 17, 2026
The dispute is not simply about cutting spending. Supporters argue that permanent development funding protects public goods that markets may underfinance, particularly as artificial intelligence capabilities and quantum computing create new technical risks. Paradigm co-founder Matt Huang has defended inflation-funded developer support as an elegant long-term mechanism. Maxime Desalle takes the opposite view, arguing that protocol subsidies divert rewards from miners, weaken incentives to seek alternative financing and encourage bureaucracy. He has pointed to privately financed projects, including Zcash Open Development Lab, as evidence that outside capital can support ecosystem development without recurring protocol funding.
Governance Becomes the Harder Question
Even among critics of indefinite funding, the next issue is who should control whatever money remains. Qureshi rejects pure tokenholder voting and favors a representative model with elected, temporary decision-makers, arguing that delegates should remain accountable rather than hold permanent authority. That position overlaps with concerns that grant recipients can accumulate ZEC and potentially increase their influence over later funding decisions, creating a compounding effect across future rounds. Zcash founder Zooko Wilcox has defended the grants system’s historical importance, while clarifying that the Zcash Community Grants Committee controls only 40% of the broader development fund.
The argument also intersects with Zcash’s emerging identity as an “encrypted Bitcoin.” Qureshi says a credible store-of-value network should eventually ossify rather than continually expand its protocol ambitions. That philosophy arrives as developers prepare NU7, targeting November 5 for mainnet activation after an October 6 testnet and an October 20 final decision. The upgrade would cut target block spacing from 75 seconds to 25 seconds while preserving the halving schedule. Zcash holders have already strongly supported both faster blocks and retaining that schedule, reinforcing the tension between active development today and a deliberately more fixed protocol tomorrow.
