November 26, 2025
Jason McGee
The results are in! Coinholders voted on nine proposals in the inaugural Coinholder-Directed Retroactive Grants Program, and five were approved: FPF Administration, Bitcoin VN, Electric Coin Company, ZcashCommunity.com Hosting, and Unstoppable Wallet. For most questions, more than 1,000,000 coins were voted, representing over $500 million in value and reflecting strong participation from coinholders.
Congratulations to everyone whose proposal was approved! Someone from FPF will reach out early next week regarding fund disbursement and to conduct KYC for applicants for whom it is required.
The next quarterly round will be announced in January 2026, with voting scheduled for March. Stay tuned for more information!
Here is a summary of the results:
Coinholder-Directed Retroactive Grants Program
The Coinholder-Directed Retroactive Grants Program is a quarterly, retroactive funding program in which ZEC holders vote directly on completed projects they believe should receive grants. Unlike milestone-based programs, this model funds only fully delivered and verifiable work, with payments made in ZEC from a multisig at the current market price. The goal of the program is to provide a simple, scalable mechanism for coinholder-driven funding and to ensure that grants reward clear, demonstrated contributions to the ecosystem.
Shielded Labs
Shielded Labs is a donation-funded organization that does not receive funding from block rewards and is supported entirely by ZEC holders and other contributors. A core value of Shielded Labs is to honor the holders. We believe the price of ZEC matters, that coinholders should have a meaningful voice in shaping Zcash’s direction, and that initiatives should prioritize the long-term interests of ZEC holders. In that spirit, Shielded Labs supports this grant program as a way to empower ZEC holders to make funding decisions. The Coinholder-Directed Retroactive Grants Program places decision-making directly in the hands of coinholders and establishes a foundation for increasing coinholder participation in governance over time.
More Information
For more information about this round of the grants program, or to review and audit the results, visit the Zcash Community Forum.
