Crosslink decides whether Zcash evolves or remains a doomed meme coin like BTC! ZEC will die if it fails to adopt PoS: ZEC is insecure, slow & centralized under PoW now Help us save ZEC from the cult! As the "encrypted Bitcoin" narrative now stands in the way of progress: 🧵 If we want ZEC to become the hardest private money, then we must embrace technological progress! In ZEC's current state, that is far from being the case. On top of that, the decision-making proccess is totally centralized today! Some people want to fix this & there are others who oppose such progress. This is the story of ZEC's greatest obstacle: A conflict is brewing that will decide the fate of crypto's biggest privacy coin; beware: Evolve or Die: That is the fundamental divide this debate represents, one that has played out over BTC before. A different story of how progress lost, history does not need to repeat itself here! We now have the opportunity to do things differently, to fulfill Satoshi's vision for a true cypherpunk P2P Cash. Instead of merely pretending on a network that cannot possibly make that dream a reality If we want ZEC to be the best possible version of itself, then ofcourse it should adopt the best technologies! Especially when they represent leaps & bounds in genuine progress without any significant trade-offs! To oppose such clear & objective improvements does not strike me as entirely rational; there is a degree of religiosity involved, much as is the case around BTC too The Bitcoin Cult: Most Bitcoiners believe that BTC is the most secure, decentralized & economically sound network When that, in reality, is incredibly far from the truth, by several orders of magnitude now! BTC's security is collapsing (already much lower cost to attack than all major PoS chains today) This will lead to increasing the inflation rate beyond the "sacred" 21M limit; that will lead to forks & even a potential death spiral with a "bank run" & all. It is an absolute disaster & the crisis will hit within a decade Look, we covered this extensively elsewhere & it is 2026; ask Grok to pull up some of my other articles on this if you want to know more. This can all be proven without a shadow of doubt. That is not the point of this article My point is that BTC is some kind of mass delusion, of the type we have seen before in the 2008 housing crisis, the dot-com bubble & even the Tulip bubble! It has happened before & it is happening again with BTC today So it is no wonder that some of that religiosity/mentality "infects" the communities of other chains, such as ZEC. Especially considering that it now has this "encrypted bitcoin" narrative going for it, or, as I argue, against it BTC's current "success" as a purely speculative meme coin has done incredible harm to our industry by inspiring other projects to follow a similar path, not realizing that it is, in fact, a dead end Its temporary "success" as a meme coin only predicts more future harm as it inevitably comes crashing down. Unfortunately for ZEC, it shares the exact same design & therefore inherits all of these same fatal flaws Conflicts of Interest: Many of the major detractors of Crosslink have conflicts of interest, such as large ownership stakes in ZEC mining companies, which would directly benefit from continuing to bleed ZEC dry today Miners also have notoriously strong short- to medium-term incentives, with barely any long-term incentives! In this case, miners are also directly incentivized to oppose any switch to PoS! I should also disclose my conflicts of interest for fairness. The fund I founded, own & help manage is also invested in ZEC, the token. I would call that aligned! Unlike miners, I am nonetheless under a fiduciary duty to report that! Who Decides: The truth is ugly, as ZEC is currently under effective centralized control. While the detractors of Crosslink mostly support that form of governance, as it mirrors the monolithic position of the Bitcoin cult My position is that the only fair way to decide this would be through a stakeholder vote. However, the infrastructure, culture & incentives are not in place, making it unlikely to succeed at scale. That makes this all a serious governance dilemma Ideally, the owners of the chain should decide ZEC's fate & should always be able to (stakeholders). Putting that on miners has never worked before in the past & putting that responsibility on a development team is a recipe for disaster: Power Corrupts: Power corrupts & absolute power corrupts absolutely. @zooko has done enough for this industry for us to expect him to start playing politics now. Make no mistake, this is old-school ugly real-world politics Exactly because there is no decentralized dispute mechanism. That is why we need decentralized decision-making processes & this can only be achieved through stakeholder governance. At least to the extent it is possible to do justice to the underlying decentralization of the chain Chicken & Egg Problem: However, it might also be a chicken-and-egg problem, because without PoS incentives, the outcome of such a vote might be seen as illegitimate if it does not garner sufficient participation So, the centralized controllers of ZEC might just have to use their very real authoritarian powers to push ZEC one last time over the finish line before they can relinquish their own centralized control, swapping it for "soft power" instead. It would at least be the best possible poetic final act from that position of control That is also why a hybrid approach might make more sense politically/diplomaticaly even if it does not make any sense technically Good Governance: The goal should be to avoid a split, even when it starts to look increasingly inevitable That is what happens when there is no formalized dispute mechanism like stakeholder voting; when the disagreement is big enough, it leads to a split. Unlike stakeholder governance. There is a reason for that: In a democracy, there is no civil war after every vote, because people agree with the decision-making process even if they do not agree with the outcome. This is still a good analogy, despite the fact that an equity is closer to how crypto governance should work in general The real problem here is governance, as it also was for Bitcoin's "block size" debates. Ultimately, that will determine the outcome of this entire debate Crosslink: In my view, Crosslink does not go far enough. Hybrid consensus is not worth it, as it inherits the cons of both systems. It is an improvement over pure PoW, sure. But it is still nowhere near as effective as a pure PoS design That is why I would rather see a full switch to PoS, while giving the mining industry several years' notice to phase out their operations responsibly But as I mentioned earlier, my technical ideal can be superseded by the political realities, no matter how frustrated that might make me. At least it also exposes the costs of having bad governance This debate is about radically different visions for blockchain colliding with each other This is not about Crosslink's implementation details at all. As we are debating some of the greatest & most critical ideological divides crypto has ever had to tackle Conclusion: Whatever decision ZEC's centralized governance makes, it will make some factions & groups of people very upset; there is no other way around this Will this lead to a "ZEC classic"? Maybe; it all depends on how everyone plays their cards. Also, which side even gets to keep the original name is a totally arbitrary & dirty political game! So, I advocate for just doing the right thing. Do what is truly best for ZEC, not just what the fantasy narrative dictates. Go full PoS, transition using hybrid if needed. That is where Crosslink is a decent plan After that, there can be several years of preparing the community, culture & incentives for the full switch to PoS. Along with the switch to full stakeholder governance! That would be my dream for ZEC. Unlocking the decision-making processes that will also enable it to improve in other ways in the future. As my wish list is very large & ZEC can do very little in comparison today This is a story of conservatism & orthodoxy against progressivism. This time, the truth seekers (progressives) are on the right side of history: ZEC must evolve, or it will most surely die Fortunately, we have a decent chance of pulling it off this time. So, for what it is worth, throw your hat into the race. Start by helping to spread this message far & wide! If ZEC manages to walk through this door & embrace progress & truth. Then ZEC most certainly deserves a place in the hallowed halls of the future of finance & money! 🔥