Vitalik Buterin Warns Zcash Community Against Token Voting Risks

Highlights:

• Vitalik Buterin warns the Zcash community about privacy risks from token voting.
• Zooko plans re-election and supports committee oversight over automated governance.
• Only 7.5% of ZEC holders engaged in a $500M token voting pilot.

The privacy-focused token, Zcash, has recently been criticized by the Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin on its governance direction. Buterin urged the Zcash community to abandon token-weighted voting because of the privacy risk it represents in the long term.

The warning comes at a time when Zcash is discussing its system of governance and growth in price and funding. According to Buterin, token voting brings in short-term incentives that might compromise privacy protection.

He cited his essay on governance in 2021, citing the hidden selling of votes in the form of unbundled voting rights. This system, he cautioned, allows mighty actors to prevail in decision-making without accountability. He noted, “Token voting is worse than the status quo of Zcash.” He highlighted that privacy may be lost when future choices are based on the financial ambitions of the median token holders.

Zcash has experienced a growth of over 1000% over the past 3 months. However, ZEC has declined by 20% over the last week as market uncertainty continues to dominate. This upsurge was accompanied by a pilot test of token-voting retroactive grant funding. The program distributed more than $500 million, yet the participation was low. Additionally, the proportion of the ZEC holders who participated in these critical decisions was only 7.5%.

I hope Zcash resists the dark hand of token voting.

Token voting is bad in all kinds of ways (see https://t.co/Cvl7CFVgtc ); I think it's worse than Zcash's status quo.

Privacy is exactly the sort of thing that will erode over time if left to the median token holder. https://t.co/NbRqGLOrpj

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) November 30, 2025

Rising Value Brings New Governance Challenges

Zooko, one of the key figures of Zcash governance, acknowledged the evolving structure of the system and upcoming elections. He assured that he would be running again and emphasized the importance of continuity and judgment. He added that the five-member committee (ZCG) operates autonomously with no outside influence. Zooko, furthermore, raised concerns about rising grant requests and stressed disciplined decisions on funding.

He quoted an increasing demand for good transparency in the context of escalating market value. The risks of misallocated spending also increase with the increase in the treasury size. Zooko cautioned against easy access to money, as it might decrease the accountability of the community. He explained that he lives an ordinary life to preserve his judgment despite the increased ZEC price.

Furthermore, he pointed out that there are still long-term developers who lack funding. Their continued work is a requirement for community health. There were also discussions about the upgrade of the protocol, like NSM, ZSA, and Crosslink. Zooko further stated that time and common sense in the community are key factors in approving upgrades.

Experts Debate Governance Models Amid Market Growth

The governance debate was expanded by the contribution of Naval Ravikant and Darklight. Naval stated full on-chain systems and implied that trusted intermediaries are outdated. In contrast, Darklight advocated judgmental governance, particularly in the areas of research and funding. He claimed that automated systems do not provide subtlety in nuanced decisions.

I usually agree with the 'Code is Law' thesis, but there is a category error here.

We need to distinguish between the 'Ledger' (which must be trustless) and 'R&D' (which requires judgment).

On-chain governance for allocating funds usually devolves into a capital-weighted…

— Darklight Z (@DignityCipher) November 28, 2025

In addition, Darklight stated that ZCG assists in screening and prioritizing quality proposals. He cautioned against token voting that tends to bring about capital domination and voter apathy. Zcash has been put under pressure by fluctuations in the market to scale its governance processes. Others consider token voting to be a solution to adapt to complexity and new capital. However, Buterin insisted that this would come at the cost of the privacy mission for which Zcash was created. He cautioned against whale dominance becoming structural and irreversible over time.