Standing Proposal Review Call Summary: 14 October 2026
The Proposal Review Call held on 14 October 2026 covered:
- the live protocol upgrade vote, ZIP-18
- two governance proposals currently on the forum, the dissolution of guardians and activation optimistic governance for ZIPs
- a demo of the optimistic governance contracts by Scopelift; and
- the Matter Labs Q3 delivery report.
Here is a summary for anyone who could not make it.
ZIP 18: Protocol Upgrade
Link to: [ZIP-18] Resubmission of the ZKsync v31 Upgrade
ZIP 18 is a resubmission of the V31 upgrade that was approved in July. Security reviews by the Security Council and Matter Labs found bugs in the calldata. These had to be fixed and re-audited, so the upgrade has been resubmitted. The changes from the July version are centered around the calldata fixes.
ZIP 18 is likely to be the final feature upgrade for EraVM, as set out in the Hardening EraVM blog post published in September. Security upgrades for EraVM will still be shipped whenever they are needed, and they will always take priority.
The vote is currently in the voting period. Please review the proposal and submit your vote if you haven’t already.
Dissolution of the ZKsync Guardians
Link to: [ZIP-XX] Dissolution of the ZKsync Guardians
The draft proposal to dissolve the Guardians was discussed. The original governance design and Guardian oversight were built around ZKsync Era as a public L2. The ecosystem’s focus has since shifted toward Prividium, and Guardian funding ended around mid 2025.
If the proposal passes, the Guardians’ veto rights will transfer to the ZKsync Foundation. The Emergency Upgrade Board will go from three bodies (Guardians, Foundation and Security Council) to two (Foundation and Security Council), with the Foundation taking over the Guardians’ seat. The Association will assist with winding up the Guardian entity and updating the governance procedures.
Optimistic Governance for ZIPs
Link to: [Draft ZIP] Activate Optimistic Governance for ZIPs
The draft proposal to activate optimistic governance for ZIPs was discussed. Active approval has become harder to sustain as Delegate priorities and target stakeholders have shifted. Protocol upgrades are usually proposed by Matter Labs and Security Council members, and only a small group of people has the technical context to assess them. That is very different from TPPs and GAPs.
Under the proposed veto model, a Security Council member puts an upgrade on-chain and the council votes to move it into a veto period. During that period the Token Assembly can veto any upgrade it sees as misaligned. This keeps final authority with token holders while making upgrades faster. It also lets delegates spend their time on token programs and GAPs, where their input matters most.
Optimistic Governance Contracts and Cactus Demo
Ben DiFrancesco, CEO and founder of ScopeLift, and senior engineer Mike Gen presented the smart contracts behind optimistic governance. With optimistic governance, specialised entities can move technical proposals forward day to day without needing a positive vote on every update. Token holders keep final authority since they can veto proposals.
The contracts were first built for Tally. After Tally shut down, ScopeLift took over the platform and rebranded it as Cactus. The contracts are based on the battle-tested OpenZeppelin Governor contracts with minimal changes, which helps with security and support across clients.
Ben demoed the flow live on Cactus using a test DAO. Security Council members vote on a proposal until it reaches quorum. The proposal then enters a veto period where the Token Assembly can vote to veto it. If the veto threshold is reached, the proposal fails. If not, it is queued and executed. Security Council members can be individual wallets or nested multisigs, and ZKsync will use the nested multisig setup.
Matter Labs Q3 Delivery Report
Link to: Matter Labs | Q3 2026 Deliverables Report
Steven presented the Matter Labs Q3 delivery report, which is published on the forum. The highlights were:
- Atomic interoperability between Prividium chains has been tested internally and launched. Institutions on different Prividium chains can now settle trades and transactions privately.
- Prividium core is now open source. This made it possible for the Deutsche Bundesbank to test it on its internal systems. Steven noted that institutions need open source software they can run on their own servers to meet regulatory and privacy requirements.
- Prividium is in the early stages of SOC 2 Type 2 compliance. This is a standard vendor requirement for working with banks and other institutions.
- The ZKsync Era execution delay went up from 3 hours to 24 hours between September and October. This is part of the Hardening EraVM work. It gives a 24 hour window to catch potential issues in the older EraVM code as AI-enabled attacks become more common.
Next Steps
Delegates please review and vote on ZIP 18 while voting is open.
Feedback on the Guardians and optimistic governance proposals is welcome in their forum threads.