I want to raise a serious concern that has been building for months regarding treasury priorities, transparency, and the overall direction of the ecosystem.
Like many others here, I invested in ZKsync because I genuinely believed in the technology and the long-term potential of the project. The vision around zero-knowledge infrastructure and scaling was compelling, and the market sentiment around the ecosystem seemed strong.
However, the more time passes, the more troubling the situation looks from the perspective of a token holder.
Over the last months we have seen millions of ZK distributed through various âcommunity initiatives,â and now proposals like Community Activation RFP 3 request another ~833k ZK for narrative and social media campaigns.
Previously, another program allocated roughly 1,000,000 ZK to creators who are required to produce 20â30 posts per month aligned with pre-approved narratives such as:
⢠âZKsync as institutional infrastructureâ
⢠âBank Stackâ
⢠âMiCA readinessâ
⢠âbeyond L2 superiorityâ
At this point it raises a very uncomfortable question:
Why is such a significant portion of the treasury being used to fund coordinated messaging campaigns instead of initiatives that drive real ecosystem value?
This proposal honestly makes the situation look even worse. Instead of prioritizing builders, infrastructure, adoption, or mechanisms that strengthen the token economy, more treasury funds are being directed toward social media narratives, impressions, and engagement metrics.
Meanwhile, several fundamental questions from token holders remain unanswered:
⢠Where is the clear value-accrual model for the ZK token?
⢠Where are mechanisms that align protocol growth with token holder value?
⢠Are there any plans for buybacks, burns, or revenue-linked incentives?
⢠Why is staking participation still weak relative to circulating supply?
⢠Why is treasury transparency still missing despite earlier requests from the community?
Three months ago, a reasonable request was made asking for a high-level treasury disclosure and spending breakdown. The response acknowledged the question but ultimately did not provide the information requested, and since then there has been no follow-up.
At the same time, new proposals continue to distribute large amounts of ZK tokens.
From the outside, the pattern increasingly looks like this:
Treasury tokens â distributed to influencers â influencers push narratives â token supply continues to expand â market confidence continues to weaken.
This is extremely concerning for small investors who believed in the project.
For the team and founders, ZKsync may be an exciting technological experiment or long-term research effort. For many people in this community, however, the token represents years of hard-earned money invested into the ecosystem.
Personally, I invested because I believed in the fundamentals. But what I am seeing now makes me question whether the market sentiment around ZKsync was truly organic, or largely driven by paid narrative campaigns funded by the treasury itself.
That is a very uncomfortable thought.
There is also a broader governance concern that should not be ignored. When treasury funds are used to pay creators to promote pre-defined narratives about the ecosystem, it raises legitimate questions about transparency and disclosure. If large portions of the online sentiment around the project are influenced by treasury-funded messaging programs, the community deserves clear visibility into that process. Otherwise, it becomes difficult for investors and users to distinguish between genuine community enthusiasm and paid promotional activity funded by the ecosystemâs own treasury.
Greater transparency around these programs and overall treasury spending would help avoid that perception and strengthen trust.
If the technology is truly as strong as claimed, it should not require millions of tokens spent on coordinated social media messaging to maintain confidence.
What the ecosystem needs is:
⢠Clear treasury transparency
⢠A credible token value-accrual model
⢠Stronger alignment between the team and token holders
⢠Funding for builders, infrastructure, and real adoption
Not more narrative campaigns.
I may be wrong in my assessment, but if Iâm not the only one seeing these patterns, then itâs important that more token holders start asking these questions.