I’m a long-term ZK holder. I’m not here to relitigate the ZIP-16 rescope or the semantics of what was or wasn’t promised — Golem has answered those points, and the vote will settle the rest. I want to ask a different, more fundamental question, and I’d genuinely appreciate a substantive answer rather than reassurance.
The question: after the v31 rescope, what concretely ties Matter Labs’ success to ZK’s value — not to ZK’s survival, but to its appreciation?
Here is the tension as I see it, stated as neutrally as I can:
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Enterprise revenue arrives in fiat. Prividium licensing, Cari, ADI — these pay Matter Labs directly, regardless of where the token trades. The company’s business model no longer appears to depend on the token price in any way.
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The value-return mechanism is built but switched off, with no date. The fee-flow contracts are deployed and audited; the burn function is live in the token contract. But interop fees were just deferred from v31, and the enterprise fee-routing mechanism remains “in development.” Everything is “available to a future governance proposal” — which is also true of things that never happen.
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Meanwhile, value flows the other way on a schedule. TPP-18 mints 67M ZK per month to Matter Labs. That’s a dated, enacted, concrete transfer from token holders to the company — while the transfer in the opposite direction remains undated and unproposed.
I don’t think any single one of these is illegitimate. Institutions asking for direct-to-L1 settlement is a real constraint. TPP-18 passed a fair vote. Deferring unfinished work is normal engineering. But taken together, they describe a structure where Matter Labs needs the token to exist — for governance, for grants, for the decentralization story — but does not need it to be worth anything. Holders carry all the appreciation risk; the company carries none.So, three specific asks:
I. Sequencing commitment. Will Matter Labs commit to publishing an enterprise fee-routing proposal (the mechanism connecting Prividium/licensing revenue to the token) before Cari’s commercial rollout? Not passing it — governance decides that — just putting it on the table so the community can see the intended shape of value accrual before the revenue starts flowing. If not before Cari, then by when?
II. Conditions, not vibes. “Fee activation remains available to governance” is true but empty. What conditions does Matter Labs believe should trigger activation of the dormant Gateway fee mechanics or an alternative? Volume thresholds? A specific release? If the honest answer is “we don’t know yet,” say that — it’s more useful than open-ended deferral.
III. The alignment mechanism itself. Beyond team token allocations (which, at current prices, function closer to salary than skin in the game), what is the mechanism by which ZK appreciating benefits Matter Labs more than ZK merely surviving? If the answer is “reputation and long-term vision,” that’s worth stating plainly so holders can price it accordingly.
I’m asking because I want to stay. A clear, even partially disappointing answer lets long-term holders underwrite this position honestly. Continued ambiguity forces us to assume the least favorable interpretation — not out of anger, but out of prudence.
Thanks to Golem for engaging in the thread so far. I hope this framing is one Matter Labs can respond to directly.