Thank you for your feedback @benido
How do we as the TA know that the “VAT” = cost for the audit is really what Matter Labs (or any ZIP developer) is requesting?
In the “Eligibility Criteria” of the proposal, we included a requirement to make sure costs are accurate. Development organizations submitting a ZIP must provide invoices to the Security Council, which is composed of leading security firms and experts. The Security Council verifies that the amounts are real, accurate, and in-line with industry standards. The Proposal Review call from April 9th also has a discussion around this point (find notes & recording here).
Also how is this set up really improving the situation for ZIP contributors if they only get paid if the ZIP is implemented in the protocol but they would have to eat the cost if the TA votes against the upgrade?
Regarding your second point, this design minimizes the potential for gaming and spurious costs by ensuring that proposers have genuine skin in the game, sustain the costs initially and assume the risk if the ZIP does not pass. This is a first step in the broader journey to create a sustainable path to contributions to ZKsync protocol development but, as you pointed out, it may not be enough.
Thinking about the broader roadmap, we should work on additional pieces, including programs that provide targeted support for research and development efforts related to protocol upgrades. One of the questions that we outlined in the proposal pipeline from March is: “How should the Token Assembly support ongoing protocol R&D and the companies which are working on its development?”. This is going to be key, in my opinion, in solving for both near term as well as long term.