[TPP-Draft] 2026 ZKsync Protocol & Network Development Allocation

[the_matter_labs]

[TPP Draft] 2026 ZKsync Protocol & Network Development Allocation

Title	2026 ZKsync Protocol & Network Development Allocation
Proposal Type	TPP
One Sentence Summary	This proposal allocates 12 capped minters of 67M ZK each, distributed monthly to Matter Labs over 12 months (~$1M USD per month at the $0.015/ZK reference price), to execute the 2026 Prividium roadmap and convert the active institutional pipeline into deployed chains and a growing institutional network.
Proposal Author	Matter Labs
Proposal Sponsor	Matter Labs
Date Created	2026-05-15
Version	v1
Total Allocation	67M ZK per month over 12 months (~$1M USD per month at the $0.015/ZK reference price), delivered through twelve monthly capped minters. The Token Assembly retains the right to revoke any future monthly minter at any time.
Unlock	12-month unlock from July 1, 2026 through twelve staggered capped minters.
Link to proposal discussion	TBC

Summary

This proposal allocates 67M ZK per month (~$1M USD per month at the $0.015/ZK reference price) to Matter Labs over 12 months to execute the 2026 Prividium roadmap and convert the active institutional pipeline into deployed chains and a growing institutional network. As that adoption scales, the resulting protocol activity can generate fees and network usage that are routed through governance-controlled mechanisms.

Funding supports Matter Labs’ Prividium engineering, BD and forward-deployed work that converts the pipeline, and continued investment in the supporting ZK Stack and Airbender layers.

The allocation is delivered through twelve monthly capped minters, each containing 67M ZK and governed by a 5/7 Program Admin Multisig with three Foundation, two ZKGPS, and two Security Council signers. The Security Council holds the pauser role on each capped minter, and the Token Assembly retains the right to revoke any future minter at any time.

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Abstract

Banks moving onchain is inevitable. The only open question is whose infrastructure becomes the de facto settlement network for the trillions of dollars in institutional value that will move onchain over the next decade. JPMorgan’s Kinexys has processed more than $1.5 trillion on blockchain rails. The tokenized real-world asset market is approaching $29 billion. Stablecoin supply has passed $300 billion, with 93% of tokenized U.S. assets and $157 billion in regulated stablecoin supply settling on Ethereum. Two or three teams are credibly building the institutional ZK settlement layer. The team that supplies the first wave of regulated bank deployments doesn’t just set the standard, it captures the compounding network effects that define winner-take-most settlement markets. That decision window is open right now and closes fast.

ZKsync is one of those protocols, and Matter Labs has pivoted its entire focus towards making sure ZKsync wins this market, and converts that win into the default settlement network for institutional finance on Ethereum. The proof is already in production: Deutsche Bank live as Memento, ADI Chain running with First Abu Dhabi Bank and the Central Bank of UAE, Cari Network onboarding for five U.S. regional banks ($600B+ in combined deposits). The active pipeline exceeds 30 institutions across U.S. and international banks, central banks, sovereign currency issuers, and global custodians. Every additional institution that deploys raises the cost for the next bank to choose a competing rail.

Network adoption is the mechanism that connects this work to ZKsync protocol activity. The fee-flow architecture via ScopeLift is deployed on ZKsync Era and audited. The v31 protocol upgrade which introduces interop fees based on cross-chain messages, payable in ZK, is currently in review and planned to be executed by end of Q2 2026, pending a successful governance vote. Broader institutional tokenomics, including a Network Fee Pool that routes activity to network operators, the ZKsync Governed token supply, validator participants, and protocol burn, are being structured for ZKsync Governance consideration. As institutional adoption scales through the 2026 roadmap, the resulting network usage and fee generation flow back to ZKsync through these mechanisms, supporting the long-term economic sustainability of the protocol. Activation and routing remain Governance decisions. Protocol activity grows by mechanism, not by promise.

This proposal allocates 12 capped minters, each containing 67M ZK, to be distributed to Matter Labs once per month over the course of 12 months (~$1M USD per month at the $0.015/ZK reference price) to fund Prividium engineering, the BD and forward-deployed work that converts the institutional pipeline, and continued investment in the supporting ZK Stack and Airbender layers. The allocation delivered through these twelve monthly capped minters can be revoked via a governance vote through the Token Assembly at any time.

Safeguards include monthly sequential unlock with no cliff; each monthly capped minter independently revocable by Token Assembly governance vote at any point; 5/7 Program Admin Multisig with three Foundation, two ZKGPS, and two Security Council signers; no governance voting on tokens minted under this allocation; continued public quarterly reporting in the format established in 2025 and continued in 2026.

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Motivation

Why now: the institutional standard is being set this year

2026 is when the architectural decisions get made, and when the winner of institutional settlement gets locked in for the next decade. The TAM for tokenized deposits, RWAs, and regulated stablecoins is measured in trillions; the platform that captures the first cohort of regulated banks captures the disproportionate share of that flow. JPMorgan’s Kinexys platform has processed more than $1.5 trillion on blockchain rails, averaging $2 billion daily across institutional clients. DTCC is advancing SEC-cleared tokenization of U.S. Treasuries. NYSE is building tokenized securities rails with BNY and Citi supporting the cash leg. The tokenized real-world asset market is approaching $29 billion. Global stablecoin supply has passed $300 billion, with 93% of tokenized U.S. assets and $157 billion in regulated stablecoin supply settling on Ethereum.

The Global Financial Markets Association, the trade body representing nearly every major bank globally, published a report in April 2026 cataloging what remains technically open: interbank interoperability for tokenized deposits remains unsolved, transaction privacy standards are absent, settlement mechanics equivalent to RTGS systems are not yet built, and governance for digital money is undefined. This is the architectural agenda the next 18 months will resolve. The platforms that resolve it become the institutional standard.

First movers in institutional ZK infrastructure don’t just set the standard, they capture the network effects that make displacement uneconomic. Architectural decisions made by the first wave of regulated deployments calcify into the rails everyone else builds on, and each new institution that joins those rails increases the gravitational pull on the next. The window between proof-of-concept and category-defining standard is open now and will not stay open for long. The institutions making those decisions are not running pilots; they are selecting the rails that will define the next decade-plus of institutional blockchain infrastructure.

Where we are: Matter Labs has pivoted to drive Prividium adoption

Matter Labs has pivoted its entire focus towards institutional adoption. The 2026 roadmap, the engineering allocation, the BD functions, the organizational structure all serve one bet. Prividium becoming the de facto institutional settlement network for programmable finance on Ethereum; the rails that tokenized deposits, RWAs, and regulated stablecoin flows settle through at institutional scale.

Prividium is the bank-grade product layer of the protocol: institutional privacy by architecture, full compliance integration, and cryptographic Ethereum settlement, on a chain each institution owns and operates.

Live institutional deployments:

• Cari Network: tokenized deposit network for five U.S. regional banks representing $600B+ in combined deposits (Huntington Bancshares, First Horizon, M&T Bank, KeyCorp, Old National Bancorp). Currently onboarding with production rollout planned for later in 2026.

• Memento: production deployment of Deutsche Bank’s DAMA2 tokenized fund platform. First tier-one global bank live on ZK infrastructure.

• ADI Chain: live with First Abu Dhabi Bank, the Central Bank of the UAE, BlackRock, Mastercard, and Franklin Templeton.

These outcomes were directly supported by the ZKsync Prividium Roadshow Program (TPP-10, passed September 2025), which provided the institutional meetings, executive dinners, sponsorships, and association memberships that originated and accelerated the Cari Network partnership. This proposal absorbs the Roadshow scope into Stream 2 below, continuing the institutional deal flow engine without operational gaps or a separate proposal renewal, and with no increase to monthly allocation.

Five additional institutions are in commercial negotiations across tokenized deposits, multinational stablecoin treasury, private L1 access for neofinance, internal treasury optimization, and correspondent banking FX. The active pipeline beyond that exceeds 30 institutions, spanning U.S. and international banks, central banks, sovereign currency issuers, and global custodians.

These relationships took years to build at the level of regulatory trust required for production financial infrastructure deployment. The constraints that bank compliance perimeters and regulatory supervision surface are already feeding back into the architecture. They cannot be replicated by a third party in parallel.

What we need to do: turn the pipeline into the institutional settlement network

The GTM strategy is to secure flagship institutional partnerships whose production deployments establish technical norms for the rest of their category. Each flagship validates the architecture for the next cohort, reduces integration friction for similar profiles, and raises switching costs across the network. This is how a 30+ pipeline compounds into the dominant institutional settlement network, not a series of one-off deployments, but a network whose value to each new member grows with every chain that joins.

Accelerating the deployments requires:

• Private Interop. Until it does, every Prividium deployment is a standalone installation rather than a node in a transactable network. Banks evaluate based on what their counterparties will deploy on. A network is more valuable than an installation. v31 (ZIP-16) will deliver the foundational interop infrastructure in Q2 2026, whereas Private Interop will add the privacy layer that lets Prividium chains transact with each other and with public ZKsync chains without exposing positions or transaction data. Coming later in 2026.

• The off-chain integration layer. ERP adapters, treasury management system connectors, ISO 20022 bridges, compliance automation, and reconciliation engines are what make Prividium native to a bank’s existing operations. The infrastructure that converts an architectural fit into an operational one.

• BD and forward-deployed coverage. A 30+ institution pipeline has been managed through a small delivery team rather than a traditional professional services organization. That has been efficient. It has also been a ceiling on conversion velocity. Closing the gap between active negotiations and live deployments requires scaling BD coverage to match the pipeline, embedding forward-deployed engineering with institutional partners during integration and onboarding, and building partner success and operational support to keep deployed institutions live and growing.

This allocation will be fully invested in these three areas, turning current and upcoming commercial negotiations into deployments and network activity.

How execution converts to network growth

The mechanism connecting institutional adoption to ZKsync is based on deployed and planned protocol infrastructure. It is a fee-flow contract deployed on Era and audited, ready for governance activation. It is v31 interop fees on cross-chain messages, payable in ZK, currently in review and planned for end of Q2 2026 pending a successful governance vote. It is a Network Fee Pool routing activity to network operators, the ZKsync Governed token supply, validator participants, and protocol burn, currently being structured for ZKsync Governance consideration. As Prividium chains go live, the foundation for institutional fee flow is established chain by chain. Every additional chain raises the gravitational pull on the next.

As features ship, deals close. As deals close, more chains deploy. As chains generate institutional transaction volume, fees may route through deployed contracts and governance-controlled mechanisms, subject to Token Assembly activation and applicable disclosures. The protocol grows. The mechanical relationship between institutional adoption and ZKsync’s economic structure is established in code, not narrative. The institutional standard for tokenized finance is being set in 2026, and the network that anchors the first wave of regulated deployments anchors the compounding flow that follows for the decade after. Activation and routing remain Token Assembly decisions through standard ZIP and GAP processes. Protocol activity grows by mechanisms, not by promises.

Note on future token mechanics: Any future Network Fee Pool, fee-routing, validator-participant allocation, protocol burn, staking, or other token mechanic described in this proposal would require the applicable ZKsync governance process and any required public disclosures before implementation.

How we build the network: three execution streams, one destination

Prividium is the product. The network is the multiplier. The 2026 roadmap is structured as three execution streams that scale Prividium adoption and the network that compounds with each new chain it brings online.

Stream 1: Engineering velocity (the features that close the deals).

Prividium core (the Bank Stack). The 2026 work converts the institutional pipeline into a transactable network:

• Private Interop, coming later in 2026, is the protocol layer that allows Prividium chains to transact with each other without exposing positions or transaction data. v31 will deliver the foundational interop infrastructure in Q2; Private Interop adds the privacy layer on top.

• Off-chain integration layer: ERP adapters, treasury management system connectors, ISO 20022, compliance automation, and reconciliation engines. The infrastructure that makes Prividium native to a bank’s existing operations.

• Managed Services: Productized operational stack handling provisioning, monitoring, upgrades, and support for institutional chain operators, with focus shifting from public L2s to higher-per-customer Prividium contracts.

• SOC 2 attestation, required for institutional procurement and deployment in regulated jurisdictions.

• Pre-production demos and customer-specific MVPs that compress the institutional sales cycle.

• Migration path for Besu L1s to migrate to Prividium and Ethereum L2s

The public network, where Prividium connects to liquidity, applications, and end users. Public chains running on the ZKsync network include Abstract, Lens, Genlayer, GRVT, Space and Time, and OpenZK. Every institutional deployment becomes more valuable as the public network it connects to deepens, and vice versa. The 2026 work expands both surfaces in lockstep:

• Public Interop expansion builds on v31 to extend the public interop layer across all ZKsync chains, with continued upgrades to bundle handling, gateway routing, and gas accounting. This is critical because Prividium chains will eventually transact with public chains.

• Atlas continued development covers performance, modularity, and decentralization improvements across chain coordination and proof aggregation. This is the chain coordination layer Prividium chains depend on.

• App chain growth: onboarding new public chains, supporting existing chain operators, and extending the ZK Stack footprint across enterprise, DeFi, and consumer use cases. Public chains validate the platform at production scale and stress-test infrastructure that Prividium institutional partners will rely on.

• Decentralization work advances decentralized sequencing and prover networks toward Stage 1+ rollup maturity. Institutional adopters increasingly require decentralized sequencer and prover guarantees.

• Developer experience: SDK and tooling improvements, EVM equivalence refinements, and standardization across the ZKsync stack. Reduces friction for both public chain operators and Prividium institutional partners.

Airbender, the proving layer institutional throughput requires. Airbender is currently #1 on eth_proofs, with approximately 1-second block proving on consumer-grade GPUs and 21.8 MHz on a single H100. The 2026 work takes it from leading prover to standard infrastructure for institutional ZK settlement:

• Airbender 2.0, the next-generation proving system, benchmarks at 2-3x cheaper transactions and 2-3x faster proving versus alternatives. As Prividium adoption scales, institutional unit economics compound in our favor.

• Continued optimizations across prover startup costs, hardware efficiency, and per-transaction economics improve those unit economics further as the network grows.

• Advancing toward formal verification readiness, a prerequisite for the most security-sensitive institutional and protocol use cases, lets ZKsync defend regulatory-grade security claims.

• Maintaining post-quantum security properties of the proving stack lets long-horizon institutional contracts be honored through cryptographic transitions.

The four properties of ZKsync’s architectural moat, privacy by architecture, institutional control over execution and data, cryptographic finality without optimistic challenge windows, and atomic cross-chain composability without external bridges or validator committees, are delivered by the integrated network: Prividium at the institutional surface, the public network at the open surface, and Airbender as the proving substrate beneath both.

No other Layer 2 platform combines all four institutional needs at production scale, and no competitor has the network depth to compound them.

No other platform combines these institutional needs at production scale today. The requirements extend beyond what L2 architectures alone can deliver. Production-grade combination of bank-controlled privacy, cryptographic verifiability, native Ethereum settlement, and atomic cross-chain composability requires the full Matter Labs stack: proving system, ZK Stack platform, and Prividium product layer, operated end-to-end.

Stream 2: BD, forward-deployed, and partner success (the conversion engine).

Engineering ships the product. Sales ships the customer. The work that turns a 30+ institution pipeline into the default settlement network for institutional finance is its own discipline and is funded as such. The TAM is generational; the conversion engine has to match it.

• Scale BD coverage to match a 30+ pipeline: Active engagement with banks, central banks, FMIs, sovereign issuers, and custodians at the executive level. Today’s coverage is lean for the size of the pipeline; this funding scales it to match.

• Regional BD coverage across the institutional clusters that matter: US (tokenized deposits, custody, treasury, capital markets), Europe (regulated stablecoin and tokenization platforms), Middle East (sovereign and central bank infrastructure), LATAM (tokenized deposits, stablecoins, and capital markets), and APAC (correspondent banking, multinational treasury). Institutional sales happen in person and in market; coverage scales with the geographic footprint of the pipeline.

• Institutional convenings and strategic memberships: Tier-1 institutional event sponsorships, private executive dinners with C-suite decision-makers from banks, asset managers, media, and regulators, curated invite-only programming that ZKsync convenes directly, and annual memberships with the institutional, regulatory, and industry bodies where infrastructure decisions are made (the Linux Foundation, the Digital Chamber, the Blockchain Association, The Tie’s Institutional Accelerator, and similar). This is the institutional deal flow engine that directly drove the Cari Network partnership announced in Q1 2026, previously funded under the ZKsync Prividium Roadshow Program (TPP-10, September 2025). Continuing this scope under this allocation extends the engine without operational gaps or a separate proposal renewal. Read more about the Prividium Roadshow impact to date in the H1 2026 Report.

• Forward-deployed engineering: Engineers embedded with institutional partners during integration and onboarding. Removes the deployment friction that otherwise stretches institutional timelines from months to years.

• Partner success and operational support: Sustained operational engagement post-deployment keeps institutions live and growing rather than churning.

• GTM & Customer Advocacy Engine: Live deployments operate as the strongest sales asset in the pipeline. Funded work includes customer case studies, joint marketing with deployed institutions, and customer-to-customer reference calls during active sales cycles.

• Channel and integration partnerships with core banking platforms, system integrators, and treasury management vendors. Each channel relationship expands the deployable surface area without scaling BD headcount linearly.

• Advisory Services extend ML’s reach into regulatory, capital markets, and central banking communities where institutional infrastructure decisions are made. These relationships shape adoption upstream of formal procurement.

• Pre-production demos and customer-specific MVPs. The model that has converted a 30+ institution pipeline through a small delivery team. Funded for scale.

Stream 3: Compliance and operational backbone.

External security audits, formal verification work, regulatory engagement across deployment jurisdictions, governance execution (ZIPs, GAPs, TPP execution), and ecosystem support work that spans all three streams.

Why Matter Labs: three things have to be true now

Three things have to be true for any team that delivers the 2026 roadmap. Each is true of Matter Labs and is not true of any other team.

The proof system has to be in production at institutional throughput, cost, and latency. Airbender is currently #1 on eth_proofs, the public proof system benchmark. The production stack supports approximately 15,000+ ERC-20 transfers per second on a single chain, sub-second proof generation, ~$0.0001 per ERC-20 transfer, and 200ms target block time. Cryptographic cross-chain settlement requires a proof system in production, not a prototype.

The operating record has to be long enough to be evidence, not claim. Matter Labs shipped the first working ZK rollup on Ethereum in 2019, brought it to production in 2020, and launched the first ZK EVM in March 2023. The network has processed over half a billion transactions and carries no protocol-level loss of funds across that history. For roughly two years, no other ZK EVM operated at comparable scale.

The institutional track has to be live. Cari Network is deploying with five U.S. regional banks later this year. Deutsche Bank’s DAMA2 tokenized fund platform is in production on ZKsync as the Memento chain. ADI Chain is live with First Abu Dhabi Bank, the Central Bank of the UAE, BlackRock, Mastercard, and Franklin Templeton. The institutions in this cohort are evaluating whether the architecture can serve them for decades, not only today, and whether their counterparties will adopt the same infrastructure.

“Matter Labs is committing its full execution focus to making ZKsync the protocol layer for institutional adoption. This proposal funds the engineering, integrations, and go-to-market work needed to support that next phase of network usage.”

— Alex Gluchowski, CEO, Matter Labs

Matter Labs operates the entire ZKsync stack: the proving system at the base, the ZK Stack platform layer, and Prividium at the institutional surface. The engineers shipping proving optimizations to mainnet are the same engineers designing the institutional features banks deploy, with no coordination overhead between organizations. That combination of cryptographic depth, protocol authority, and live institutional reach is rare in the industry and not replicable by a third party within the window this proposal addresses.

Evidence of Execution: 2025 and Q1 2026 highlights

The full 2025 record is in the four quarterly deliverables reports:

• Q1 2025 Deliverables Report

• Q2 2025 Deliverables Report

• Q3 2025 Deliverables Report

• Q4 2025 Deliverables Report

Selected highlights:

• Real-time proving with Airbender: Airbender, the world’s fastest open-source RISC-V zkVM, achieved approximately 1-second block proving on consumer-grade GPUs. Currently #1 on eth_proofs and post-quantum ready.

• Atlas stack live: Unified message passing, settlement, and chain coordination architecture deployed in 2025. ADI Chain and other 2026 institutional deployments are running on Atlas.

• Full EVM equivalence: Unmodified Ethereum contracts deploy directly on ZKsync using standard developer tools.

• Trustless interoperability: ZKsync Gateway launched as the network’s canonical settlement layer, with native cross-chain messaging live on mainnet.

• Enterprise-grade privacy: Prividium launched as a production-ready platform for regulated institutional deployments, validated by 35+ financial institutions.

• Sovereign currency: ADI Chain went live with First Abu Dhabi Bank, the Central Bank of the UAE, BlackRock, Mastercard, and Franklin Templeton.

• U.S. banking infrastructure: Cari Network selected Prividium to power a tokenized deposit network for five major U.S. regional banks ($600B+ in combined deposits across Huntington Bancshares, First Horizon, M&T Bank, KeyCorp, and Old National Bancorp), with production rollout planned for later in 2026.

• ZKsync Network footprint as of Q1 2026: 15 ZKsync Chains live on mainnet across eraVM and Atlas, with an additional 10 chains live on testnet preparing for mainnet. ZKsync Era was the second-largest blockchain for RWAs as of mid-2025, with $2.3B in RWA on chain.

Public chain evidence beyond institutional deployments:

• Abstract: Consumer-focused ZK Stack chain that supported 100+ applications at launch. By early 2026, Abstract had entered the top 10 blockchain revenue rankings, surpassing Avalanche and Near in fee revenue despite a TVL approximately 2.5% the size of Avalanche’s. (Source: CryptoRank, January 2026)

• GRVT: First ZK Stack appchain, a high-performance derivatives exchange that has reached significant cumulative trading volume since launch, validating ZKsync infrastructure for latency-sensitive financial applications.

• Network activity per Messari State of ZKsync Q1 2025: average daily transactions across the network rose 276.2% QoQ during Q1 2025; fees generated more than doubled QoQ to $2.7M.

Q1 2026 execution against the 2026 roadmap is documented in the Q1 2026 Deliverables Report, including the v31 (ZIP-16) interop bundles upgrade and the Atlas Prividium production launch.

What success looks like

Matter Labs’ working definition of success for this allocation: by the end of 2027, Prividium is the institutional settlement network of choice for regulated banks, central banks, and tokenization platforms globally; Private Interop is live and compounding the value of every deployed chain by connecting them into a single transactable network; governance-controlled fee mechanisms routing protocol activity to ZKsync, network participants, and ZKsync Governance are activated and operating under Token Assembly authority; and ZKsync is recognized as the leading platform for institutional ZK settlement, positioned to capture the disproportionate share of a multi-trillion dollar tokenized finance opportunity.

These are directional intents. Progress will be documented in the quarterly deliverables reports.

The Alignment Gap: why this is sized this way

Comparable protocol DAOs have moved to formalize ongoing funding for their core teams. In January 2026, Uniswap governance approved an annual allocation of 20M UNI to Uniswap Labs (approximately $75M USD at vote-date price) for forward-looking development. In April 2026, Aave governance approved approximately $32M to Aave Labs under the “Aave Will Win” framework ($25M stablecoin grant plus 75,000 AAVE). Both were structured as ongoing funding mechanisms rather than one-time grants.

Matter Labs as an entity received no token allocation at TGE for operations, development or growth. Investors and individual team members received tokens; the entity itself did not. Protocol development has continued without governance-recognized funding for nearly two years.

At 67M ZK per month (~$1M USD at the $0.015/ZK reference price), the allocation sits well below the funding levels recent peer protocols have authorized for their core teams, while preserving the Token Assembly’s right to halt issuance at any point.

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Specifications

2026 Roadmap

The published 2026 roadmap is the public-facing reference for this allocation. The streams in Motivation > How map to the work it describes.

Approximate Effort Distribution

Stream	Approximate Share
Prividium Engineering (core, integrations, Private Interop, Managed Services)	35%
BD, Forward-Deployed Engineering, Partner Success, Advisor Partnerships	20%
ZK Stack: the platform Prividium runs on	20%
Airbender: the proving layer institutional throughput requires	15%
Cross-pillar Foundations (audits, governance, regulatory, ecosystem)	10%

These are directional allocations. Final distribution remains subject to engineering execution, market feedback, and emerging priorities.

Cross-Pillar Foundations

Cross-pillar foundations cover external security audits, formal verification, governance execution (ZIPs, GAPs, TPP execution), regulatory engagement, and coordination work that spans the streams but does not sit within them.

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Allocation Mechanics

Structure

This proposal grants the MINTER role directly to twelve capped minters, each with a start date spaced one month apart. The structure enables monthly access through onchain start-date enforcement and gives governance the ability to revoke any future monthly minter independently.

Each capped minter has a cap of 67M ZK (~$1M USD per month at the $0.015/ZK reference price). Monthly issuance proceeds for each capped minter only after its start date passes and only while the Token Assembly does not revoke the minter role on that minter.

Capped Minter	Contract Address	Admin	Minter Role	Start	End	Cap
ZKsyncPND_2026_1	TBC	Program Admin Multisig	Matter Labs Multisig	Jul 1, 2026	Jul 31, 2027	67,000,000 ZK
ZKsyncPND_2026_2	TBC	Program Admin Multisig	Matter Labs Multisig	Aug 1, 2026	Jul 31, 2027	67,000,000 ZK
ZKsyncPND_2026_3	TBC	Program Admin Multisig	Matter Labs Multisig	Sep 1, 2026	Jul 31, 2027	67,000,000 ZK
ZKsyncPND_2026_4	TBC	Program Admin Multisig	Matter Labs Multisig	Oct 1, 2026	Jul 31, 2027	67,000,000 ZK
ZKsyncPND_2026_5	TBC	Program Admin Multisig	Matter Labs Multisig	Nov 1, 2026	Jul 31, 2027	67,000,000 ZK
ZKsyncPND_2026_6	TBC	Program Admin Multisig	Matter Labs Multisig	Dec 1, 2026	Jul 31, 2027	67,000,000 ZK
ZKsyncPND_2026_7	TBC	Program Admin Multisig	Matter Labs Multisig	Jan 1, 2027	Jul 31, 2027	67,000,000 ZK
ZKsyncPND_2026_8	TBC	Program Admin Multisig	Matter Labs Multisig	Feb 1, 2027	Jul 31, 2027	67,000,000 ZK
ZKsyncPND_2026_9	TBC	Program Admin Multisig	Matter Labs Multisig	Mar 1, 2027	Jul 31, 2027	67,000,000 ZK
ZKsyncPND_2026_10	TBC	Program Admin Multisig	Matter Labs Multisig	Apr 1, 2027	Jul 31, 2027	67,000,000 ZK
ZKsyncPND_2026_11	TBC	Program Admin Multisig	Matter Labs Multisig	May 1, 2027	Jul 31, 2027	67,000,000 ZK
ZKsyncPND_2026_12	TBC	Program Admin Multisig	Matter Labs Multisig	Jun 1, 2027	Jul 31, 2027	67,000,000 ZK

Monthly Allocation

The allocation is denominated in ZK and delivered through twelve monthly capped minters of 67M ZK each.

Mechanics:

• Each capped minter activates on its onchain start date, spaced one month apart.

• Each capped minter is independent: a delay or revocation on one does not affect the others.

• The Token Assembly retains the right to revoke the minter role on any capped minter at any time through standard governance. Revocation halts future issuance from that minter; tokens already minted from prior minters are not affected.

At a reference price of approximately $0.015/ZK at submission, each monthly minter represents approximately $1M USD. This figure is illustrative. It does not constrain or trigger any onchain action, and the realized USD value moves with the ZK price.

Onchain Actions

This proposal grants the MINTER role from the ZK Token contract to each of the twelve monthly capped minters. All other necessary minter and pauser roles will be assigned by the Program Admin before the proposal is submitted onchain.

Multisig Security

Program Admin Multisig

Admin Address: 0x85C0404b34f9ea28b2024D42A0f1cdDfCFCb08Cc

The Program Admin multisig has a 5/7 signer threshold and will be able to adjust minter role access on all capped minters. The signers on this multisig include:

• 3 Foundation Signers

• 2 ZKGPS Signers

• 2 Security Council Signers

This composition provides external oversight on disbursement.

Matter Labs Multisig

Matter Labs Address: 0xDA4ECC537Ee127669b38E2b76bc8Bbbb3781Ae59

The Matter Labs multisig has a 4/7 signing threshold and will have the minter role assigned to it on each monthly capped minter.

Pauser Role: Security Council Multisig

The ZKsync Security Council multisig (0xfFB6126FF8401665081b771bB11cCD0e09f95D5A) that holds the pauser role on all program capped minters, operates under its bylaws.

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Accountability Framework

Enforced Monthly Unlock

Tokens unlock through onchain start-date enforcement on the twelve capped minters. There is no cliff. There is no immediate liquidity at proposal passage. The first capped minter becomes available on July 1st, 2026, pending a successful governance vote and execution of this proposal. Each subsequent capped minter becomes available on the 1st of each month for the next 11 months. The start and end dates of capped minters are immutable parameters once deployed, meaning neither the Program Admin nor Matter Labs is able to accelerate or modify this schedule.

No Governance Voting with Allocation Tokens

Matter Labs commits that any tokens received under this allocation will not be used by Matter Labs to vote on any ZKsync governance proposal, including ZIPs, TPPs, GAPs. This commitment applies to all tokens minted under any of the twelve monthly capped minters in this allocation.

Token Use and Allocation Management

Tokens minted under this allocation are deployed to drive protocol development, adoption and network growth: upgrading the protocol, onboarding additional institutional partners onto Prividium, scaling the public chain network, deepening the integrations and infrastructure that increase transaction volume and network activity, and supporting the partnerships and commercial relationships that turn the institutional pipeline into a settlement network. Where conversion to operating capital is required, Matter Labs uses OTC and structured channels in line with onboarded market makers; no commitment is made to any specific volume, schedule, or counterparty.

Governance Controls

The Token Assembly retains full governance authority over this allocation. At any point during the 12-month period, the Token Assembly may submit a governance proposal to revoke the minter role from any individual capped minter or from multiple capped minters at once. Revocation is the primary mechanism through which the community exercises its ongoing optionality on this allocation.

Security Council Oversight

The ZKsync Security Council holds the pauser role on each of the 12 capped minters and may pause all program capped minters at any time if deemed necessary to protect the protocol or the broader network. The Program Admin Multisig holds the admin role on each capped minter and can revoke the minter role from Matter Labs on any individual capped minter if necessary.

Quarterly Reporting

Matter Labs commits to continue publishing quarterly deliverables reports in the same format and cadence established throughout 2025. These reports document protocol development progress and give the Token Assembly and broader community the primary basis for evaluating execution against the 2026 roadmap.

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Participants

• Matter Labs: Recipient of the allocation. Core protocol developer responsible for delivering the 2026 roadmap. Holds the minter role on each monthly capped minter via the Matter Labs multisig.

• ZKsync Security Council: Holds the pauser role on each monthly capped minter. Will also have two signer seats on the Program Admin Multisig that serves as admin of all twelve capped minters.

• ZKsync Foundation: Will have three signer seats on the Program Admin Multisig that serves as admin of all twelve capped minters.

• ZKGPS: Will have two signer seats on the Program Admin Multisig that serves as admin of all twelve capped minters.

• Token Assembly: Final decision authority via governance vote. Holds revocation rights at any time during the allocation period.

[0xmadmaxx.eth]

At this point, I will do my best to represent the voice of the community.

We need to see protocol upgrades rolling out at a faster rate so the infrastructure is fully prepared and ready. That way, the current activity happening off-chain can be captured on-chain and start generating fees.

At the same time, we understand that funding these activities is necessary for success. We also need to capture the institutions now, because once they choose their rails, it will likely be for decades.

When comparing the funding with other protocols, the token amount may seem huge, but the final dollar value is significantly lower, which still makes sense given current market conditions.

One final note: we would love to see the first quarterly report include specific KPIs for pipeline conversion and Prividium deployment milestones.

I will vote in favour of this proposal.

[BE4_2_L8]

I hope this comment would noticed from team members.

The team needs to understand that at the current market conditions (let’s be honest, the situation with the token looks terrible) making moves like this is extremely risky. 67 million ZK tokens every month is a very large amount, and the market is unlikely to absorb it easily right now.

It would be good to at least get the v31 update firstly. V31 Might provide some support and fundamentals for the token. Otherwise, to be honest, move like this may only make the situation worse by completely destroying the community’s trust in the project (don’t forget, that this is also an important factor)

[Euseb1u]

Why don’t you ask your ‘partners’ to fund you? Sell locked tokens OTC, unlock them in 2027. Stop comparing with other projects, other projects produce revenue and have a positive flywheel. You do not. You only rely on community support, don’t even care about token price.

This is a great project with a really bad PR. No matter how smart you are, if you don’t show respect to your community, it’s going to fail. Tech without PR is useless. Your PR is so bad, you might be useless soon.

Wake up…

[Kwankhao]

I want to start by acknowledging the strategic clarity of this proposal. The focus on institutional adoption, Prividium deployment, and positioning ZKsync as an institutional settlement layer is directionally compelling, and the execution track record to date provides meaningful context for why this ambition is credible.

That said, given the scale of issuance and its long-term impact on token economics, I believe governance needs stronger, explicitly measurable accountability to properly align incentives over the 12-month period.

At this stage, I would be inclined to support the proposal, but only with enhanced transparency and performance safeguards around execution.

Specifically, I would strongly encourage the addition or formalization of the following:

1. Clear quarterly KPIs (public and verifiable):

• number of institutions in production (not pipeline or LOI)

• real on-chain volume generated by Prividium deployments

• protocol fee capture attributable to institutional activity

• number of live chains contributing to network activity

2. Pipeline transparency breakdown: A consistent reporting structure separating:

• signed agreements (LOIs / contracts)

• active technical integrations

• fully live production deployments

This distinction is critical for governance to assess real traction versus expected traction.

3. Token impact and sell pressure modeling: A clearer analysis of:

• how minted tokens are expected to be used over time

• expected conversion to operating expenses

• potential secondary market impact and liquidity assumptions

4. Conditionality and accountability mechanisms: Consider defining explicit triggers where governance can:

• reduce future minting

• pause allocation continuation

• or reassess funding levels based on missed milestones

5. Dependency and decentralization roadmap: While Matter Labs is clearly central to execution today, I would like to see a more explicit path toward reducing single-entity dependency over time, particularly as institutional deployments scale.

Overall, I see the strategic rationale and timing sensitivity of this initiative. However, given the magnitude of issuance, I believe the strongest governance outcome is not just approval, but approval paired with rigorous, measurable accountability tied directly to real-world adoption outcomes.

This would ensure alignment between long-term protocol growth ambitions and short-term tokenholder protection.

[Golem]

Thank you to the delegates who have engaged with the proposal so far. The contributions from @0xmadmaxx.eth, @Kwankhao, and @BE4_2_L8 in particular have helped sharpen our thinking on reporting, structure, and execution accountability. There has been meaningful overlap across the questions and comments raised, so we’ve prepared the following post to address the common themes rather than reply point by point.

Existing Reporting

This is constructive feedback we’ve heard from multiple voices. Quarterly Deliverables Reports remain the primary basis for evaluating execution against the 2026 roadmap. The current reporting cadence is documented in the Q1 2026 Deliverables Report (engineering and protocol milestones) and the Prividium Roadshow H1 2026 Update (institutional pipeline and BD progress).

We appreciate the community input on surfacing institutional adoption metrics and pipeline stage transparency more clearly. The reporting framework will continue to evolve over the allocation period in dialogue with the community, balancing depth and clarity with the commercial sensitivities involved in active partner engagements.

Market impact and token absorption

We understand the concern, and that current market conditions make this a fair question to raise. The structure is built around minimum market impact:

• No immediate liquidity at proposal passage

• Sequential monthly distribution

• Schedule cannot be accelerated, start and end dates of each capped minter are immutable parameters once deployed

• Where conversion to operating capital is required, Matter Labs uses OTC and structured channels in line with onboarded market makers; no commitment is made to any specific volume, schedule, or counterparty

The Token Assembly retains the right to revoke the minter role on any future monthly minter at any time. The allocation is ZK-denominated, not USD; Matter Labs bears the same exposure to ZK price movements as any other holder.

On the broader question of community trust: quarterly reporting and the Token Assembly’s revocation rights are the structural commitments. The track record on shipping is what we’re staking the rest on, which is what we’ll continue to demonstrate through public deliverables.

Timing with v31 onchain submission

A fair point on sequencing. v31 (the ZIP-16 Interop Bundles Upgrade) is currently in its final testing phase. It is expected to be published onchain by mid-June. Once published, the upgrade will go to a governance vote, and upon passage executed. The target for production execution is the end of Q2 2026, ahead of the first monthly capped minter, which activates July 1, 2026.

The sequencing is therefore aligned so that v31 is expected to ship ahead of the first minter activation.

Accountability features

As outlined in the proposal’s Accountability Framework section, the allocation has accountability at multiple structural levels:

• Each monthly capped minter is independently revocable by the Token Assembly through a governance vote at any point

• The Program Admin Multisig (5-of-7, with three Foundation, two ZKGPS, and two Security Council signers) holds the admin role on every capped minter and can revoke the minter role from Matter Labs on any individual capped minter

• The Security Council holds the pauser role on every capped minter

• Quarterly Deliverables Reporting provides the visibility for governance to act on missed milestones

The structure favors at-will revocation by the Token Assembly over pre-specified algorithmic triggers because execution quality is a judgment harder to reduce to a fixed rule than the Assembly can apply contextually.

Role of Matter Labs at this stage of development

At the protocol layer, Stream 1 of this allocation advances decentralized sequencing and prover networks toward Stage 1+ rollup maturity. This is the technical work that reduces the network’s reliance on any single operator over time.

At the governance layer, Matter Labs commits that any tokens received under this allocation will not be used to vote on any ZKsync governance proposal. This is a public commitment by Matter Labs that applies to all tokens minted under the allocation. This separation between Matter Labs as the protocol developer and the Token Assembly as the governance body is the answer for this allocation period.

A broader institutional-execution decentralization roadmap is a related but separate conversation, and we welcome community-led proposals that explore it.

[BE4_2_L8]

I understand that project need funding for development. But IMO, it would’ve been smarter to use the capital raised from VCs to fund that. 259mil$ from VC. For such steps (+ inflation and panic for holders and investors) we need wait for at least better conditions. Or we need some stability and fundament for token. Otherwise, a sustainable market bid for $ZK may never emerge and this is will be one way road for token (Token are important for liveness of the project, it’s a very dangerous to dilute him now)

My final words: chosen not right time. All community are scared with this proposal. Token need support now as never, not more dilution and inflation.

[Anwar]

The Reality of $ZK Dilution: Where Did the $458M VC Cash Go?

@Golem, with all due respect, this response completely fails to address the actual financial reality of what Matter Labs is asking the community to swallow.

1. The Dynamic Minting Trap (The $0.0115 Reality Check)

Let’s look at the actual reality today:

• At the current price of $0.0115, those 67 million tokens are only worth $770,500. You are entering this program with an immediate, structural deficit of nearly $230,000 every single month before the first minter even activates.

• To actually achieve the $1 million USD per month you budgeted for your operational needs at today’s prices, you would need 86.95 million ZK tokens monthly.

Because your token amount is capped at 67 million, you are trapped. If the price continues to slide and hits new lows, your fixed allocation becomes mathematically incapable of funding your USD-denominated engineering and corporate operations.

So which is it? Is Matter Labs going to accept a massive operational shortfall, or is the long-term plan to inevitably come back to the DAO to demand an amendment to lift the cap and mint even more tokens to fill the gap? The community is being forced to approve a proposal that is financially broken from Day 1.

2. Pushing Toward a Quarter-Billion Monthly Unlocks

What makes this proposal truly alarming is how it stacks on top of the already aggressive existing inflation schedule.

According to official tokenomics, the regular vesting schedule for Matter Labs team members and investors is already unlocking 167 million ZK tokens every single month (0.8% of the total supply).

When you add the 67 million tokens required for this proposal at today’s prices, the total monthly supply expansion skyrockets to over 234 million ZK tokens hitting the ecosystem. We are talking about almost a QUARTER OF A BILLION ZK tokens unlocking month after month. The market cannot absorb this. There is absolutely zero fundamental bid that can withstand a quarter-billion tokens entering the ecosystem monthly while the price is actively seeking new lows.

3. Vague “OTC Channels” Are an Illusion

You noted that Matter Labs will use “OTC and structured channels in line with onboarded market makers” to convert these newly minted tokens into operating capital. This is an incredibly vague answer designed to pacify holders, but it doesn’t hold up under scrutiny:

* Who exactly is buying millions of dollars of ZK over-the-counter right now? OTC buyers are not charity organizations; they are sophisticated market participants who buy at heavy discounts and hedge their risk by immediately selling into the public market.
* Whether a token goes through an OTC desk or directly onto an order book, supply is supply. It dilutes the ecosystem all the same.

By failing to define the exact execution parameters, counterparties, or lockups for these liquidations, you are asking the community to sign a blank check.

4. Where is the $458 Million in VC Funding?

The most glaring question that you completely dodged from @BE4_2_L8 is: Why is the community paying for this at all?**

Matter Labs has raised a staggering $458 million across multiple funding rounds from heavyweight VCs like a16z, Blockchain Capital, and Dragonfly.

* Did you spend all $458,000,000 already?
* If not, why aren’t those venture capital funds being used to finance your internal protocol development and operational roadmap?
* If the answer is that the VC cash is gone, the community deserves a full, transparent audit of how half a billion dollars was burned before we ever agree to mint a single new token.

Venture capital is meant to fund the runway of the development company. Funding your internal operations by inflating the token supply while the market is down bad is unacceptable.

5. Propaganda and Luxury Events vs. Real Fundamentals

As the community understands it, a massive chunk of this proposed allocation is slated for “Prividium Roadshows,” PR campaigns, marketing, and institutional pipeline BD.

Why is the community expected to pay out of pocket for what essentially amounts to a corporate propaganda tour? We want stability, real network utility, and economic security for the token, not expensive PR events and institutional roadshows funded by diluting the very community that built this network’s TVL.

The Bottom Line

The “revocation rights” given to the Token Assembly are an illusion of safety if the baseline parameters of this proposal are fundamentally toxic to the token’s ecosystem from Day 1.

We need a direct answer: How much of that $458M VC runway is left, and why isn’t it being used to fund Matter Labs’ operations instead of pushing monthly supply expansion past a quarter-billion tokens?

Until those numbers are laid bare, this is a hard NO from the community.

[nanostrategy.eth]

@Anwar

We need a direct answer: How much of that $458M VC runway is left, and why isn’t it being used to fund Matter Labs’ operations instead of pushing monthly supply expansion past a quarter-billion tokens?

I’m also curious where those $400 million went and how they were spent

[Golem]

Thanks for the ongoing questions. There are a few points in the posts that warrant a direct response, with specific figures and structural detail.

Token mechanics and supply schedule

The proposal is denominated in ZK, not USD. The USD reference figure “approximately $0.015/ZK at submission, each monthly minter represents approximately $1M USD”, is explicitly described in the Allocation Mechanics section as “illustrative. It does not constrain or trigger any onchain action, and the realized USD value moves with the ZK price.”

Matter Labs bears the same exposure to ZK price movements as any other holder. If ZK trades below the reference price for the allocation period, the realized USD value of the allocation is lower. The proposal does not return to governance for additional issuance to compensate. The cap is fixed: this proposal contains no mechanism to increase it.

On the broader supply schedule: the existing monthly vesting from TGE allocations is part of the network’s pre-scheduled supply expansion, already known to the market and reflected in the token’s circulating supply trajectory. That vesting is on schedule independent of this proposal. The 67M ZK monthly from this allocation is the marginal new issuance under governance authorization. The structural protections (no immediate liquidity at passage, monthly capped minters independently revocable at any time, no acceleration possible) are designed to give governance ongoing control over that marginal issuance.

One distinction worth making explicit: an unlock schedule measures when tokens become available, not when or whether they enter the market. The pre-scheduled vesting from TGE allocations and this allocation are separate mechanisms, and combining them into a single sell-pressure figure overstates the actual market impact of either. And where tokens from this allocation are converted to operating capital, that conversion is handled through structured OTC channels, described below, rather than direct open-market selling on unlock dates.

Allocation management and conversion mechanics

The intentional design choice in the Token Use and Allocation Management section is to commit to principles rather than counterparties: “Where conversion to operating capital is required, Matter Labs uses OTC and structured channels in line with onboarded market makers; no commitment is made to any specific volume, schedule, or counterparty.”

The reason the language does not name specific OTC venues, lockups, or counterparties is that doing so would tie Matter Labs operationally during a 12-month period in which market conditions and counterparty availability will change. The principle is minimum market impact through structured channels rather than open-market liquidations. Quarterly Deliverables Reporting provides the visibility for the Token Assembly to evaluate how that principle has held in practice.

Venture funding and protocol funding

To correct the record on the figure in the thread: Matter Labs raised $258M in venture capital across seed (2019), Series A (2021), B (2021), and C (2022) rounds, not $458M.

On the structural question of why a protocol allocation exists alongside venture funding: every comparable L2 ecosystem maintains separate funding tracks for the company (venture capital) and protocol-level development (governance-aligned allocations). Uniswap Labs received approximately $75M from Uniswap governance in January 2026. Aave Labs received approximately $32M from Aave governance in April 2026. Matter Labs received zero ZK at TGE for operations, development, or growth. Protocol development has continued without governance-recognized funding for nearly two years.

This proposal funds protocol-level work under governance authority. It is not a runway request. As stated in the proposal, Matter Labs is operationally funded for the proposal period. This is a request for additional funding to fuel increased growth, execute the 2026 Prividium roadmap and convert the active institutional pipeline into deployed chains and a growing institutional network.

Stream 2 and the Prividium Roadshow Program

The BD work funded under Stream 2 absorbs the scope of the existing Prividium Roadshow Program (TPP-10), which was approved by governance in September 2025. That program funded the institutional meetings, executive engagements, sponsorships, and association memberships that directly produced the Cari Network partnership and built the active 30+ institution pipeline.

Stream 2 continues that work under this allocation rather than as a separate TPP renewal, with no increase to monthly allocation. The impact of the Roadshow Program to date is documented in the Prividium Roadshow H1 2026 Update. The BD function is the engine that converts the pipeline this proposal funds the conversion of, not discretionary spend on top of it.

[Anwar]

@Golem
Thank you for providing more structural detail, but your response completely avoids the core economic realities I raised. You are framing corporate risk and market mechanics in a way that protects Matter Labs while dumping the actual financial consequences onto community holders.

Let’s break down exactly where your response falls short:

1. The “Risk” Illusion: Matter Labs vs. Retail Holders

You claim that "Matter Labs bears the same exposure to ZK price movements as any other holder." This is economically and fundamentally false.

* The Community: Holders bought their ZK tokens with their own hard-earned capital. If the price goes down, they suffer actual, devastating financial losses.
*Matter Labs: You are receiving 67M ZK per month for FREE, minted out of thin air via governance. If the price drops, your *free capital* is worth less in USD, but you haven’t lost a single dime of your own money.

Worse, the community pays the ultimate price for this arrangement through continuous dilution. When you inflate the supply to pay yourselves, the price faces non-stop downward pressure. Do not equate the risk of losing real money with the “risk” of getting slightly less free money.

2. The $258M VC Funding Black Hole

Thank you for correcting the figure to $258 million. However, you completely dodged the question: Did you spend a quarter-billion dollars, and on what?

You state this is "not a runway request" and that Matter Labs is operationally funded. If you have the corporate runway to survive, why are you asking the community to take on the entire financial burden of your business development team? You claim Matter Labs received zero tokens at TGE for operations, but your executives, insiders, and VCs received massive allocations. Why isn’t *that* capital being deployed to fund your growth before you ask retail holders to absorb more dilution?

Furthermore, your comparison to Uniswap is a flawed excuse. Uniswap Labs didn’t ask for dilutive governance funding while sitting on massive, untouched venture capital reserves. They built a self-sustaining ecosystem that generates massive usage before seeking those allocations.

3. The OTC Channel Cop-Out

You explicitly state that tokens will be converted to operating capital through “structured OTC channels” to minimize market impact. Let’s be honest about what an Over-The-Counter (OTC) mechanism actually means:

You are selling these tokens to institutional buyers, likely at a heavy discount. These buyers are profit-driven corporations, not a charity. They will eventually sell those tokens on the open market to realize their profits. Whether it happens via direct open-market selling or delayed OTC pipelines, the result is exactly the same: the community retail holders absorb the sell-pressure and the financial suffering.Your refusal to name counterparties, lockups, or volumes under the guise of “market flexibility” gives the community zero actual protection.

4. Unanswered Gaps: The Revocation & Fee Illusion

You point to the Token Assembly’s right to “revoke” these monthly minters as a safeguard. But you fail to mention the governance reality: Matter Labs, its insiders, and your VCs hold massive, concentrated voting blocks. Is it mathematically possible for retail holders to actually win a vote to revoke this funding if Matter Labs underdelivers?

You talk about future fee-routing mechanisms coming back to holders, but the proposal itself admits this is “not a promise" and is subject to future governance. You are asking for guaranteed dilution today in exchange for vague, non-binding possibilities tomorrow.

---

A Note on Moderation and Free Speech

I expect this post to remain public and uncensored. I have noticed a deeply concerning trend in this forum where users who speak up with valid financial criticisms are banned or silenced. I can prove this if necessary. Handling legitimate community pushback with bans rather than economic transparency will only prove that the alignment gap between Matter Labs and its holders is as bad as we fear. Answer the hard questions with math and accountability, not moderation tools.

[BE4_2_L8]

@Golem UNI and AAVE is a way bigger than ZK in term of token liquidity, they can absorb additional inflation with minimum impact. ZK for now have a very thin liquidity. That’s a different. So this step as I said before is a very dangerous and I think might lead to death loop: New tokens → OTC sell (maybe even with discount)→ Bad market condition and thin liquidity → Panic from community and investors → price goes way lower → this proposal worth less and less in term of USD. As you can see this proposal even not started, but already worth -25% lesser

Firstly we need stability for token, or some revenue/buybacks/deflation (call it as you want), only after that there will be a chance that inflation events can be done without heavy risks.

@0xmadmaxx.eth As a voice of the community (not official, but I think likely you are) do you agree with my words? I think that this is might seems like I’m saying FUD, but I just want to say truth of the market nowadays. I don’t like this proposal for this exact timing.

[Anwar]

@0xmadmaxx.eth

With all due respect, please do not claim you are representing the “voice of the community” when your entire stance mirrors a polished corporate PR campaign. The actual retail community, the people who bought ZK tokens with their own hard-earned money, is facing massive, non-stop dilution, and they are not enthusiastically lining up to vote “yes” on inflating the supply further.

Let’s address the flaws in your “community representation”:

The Token Sizing Myth: You say the dollar value is lower so “it makes sense.” This completely misunderstands tokenomics. Denominating a proposal in a heavily depressed token means they are printing more tokens to hit their funding targets. That is a massive injection of circulating supply, which causes worse structural dilution for existing holders. Lower token prices mean the community gets hurt more, not less.

KPIs Are Not Protections: Asking for KPIs in a quarterly report is a toothless concession. Once the minting power is handed over, the tokens are gone. Dilution happens in real-time, while “reporting” happens months later.

The First Mover-Trap: You are parroting Matter Labs’ exact narrative about capturing institutions for decades. But why should retail holders fund a private company’s institutional sales pipeline with their token value, while Matter Labs sits on $258 million in venture capital?

You are entirely entitled to your vote, but please speak for yourself, or the marketing campaigns you lead and evaluate, and not for the community holders who are actually carrying the financial burden of this protocol alone.

[0xmadmaxx.eth]

Hey @BE4_2_L8

From my POV, I’ll try to keep this short since I already stated my opinion and requests.

a) I’m the first one who wants the price to go up (IYKYK)

b) There are very few delegates who had the balls to raise their voice during the latest proposals. I was one of them, with a track record of Abstain/Against votes.

c) The community around me, mainly people who delegate their tokens, agreed that we hate TPP proposals, but this one is probably the first that directly affects ecosystem growth.

d) We asked for transparency, and while this funding will be controlled via governance, we will know what’s happening with the tokens or how they’re spent.

e) The protocol upgrade V31 was published before this proposal, so my expectation is that it will be published on-chain before this funding gets approved.

Hopefully you got what you asked for.

And for Anwar Hello, I’m an active participant in governance and an ecosystem contributor since day one. With all due respect, before I start reacting, I’d love to know where you’re coming from. Any intro or background would be appreciated.

[Anwar]

@0xmadmaxx.eth , I am exactly who I claimed to be in my first post: a retail holder who used hard-earned capital to support this protocol.
The fact that you need an ‘intro or background’ to engage with my points is exactly why I challenged your claim to speak for the community. The community isn’t just a closed circle of day-one insiders—it includes the thousands of holders bearing the financial weight of this dilution. My arguments stand on their own merit, and I’d prefer to keep the focus on the actual tokenomics of the proposal.

[Lisanc]

@the_matter_labs

Prividium

My personal view:

First, let’s look at some data and facts:

1. 160 million ZK tokens are unlocked each month (allocated to the team and VC).

2. Through proposals such as the ZKsync Immunefi Bug Bounty Program 2026, approved at the token governance meeting, the Foundation, the Association, the ZKsync Security Council, and others still have 250 million ZK tokens remaining to be minted. ZKsync Token Program Capped Minter Overview

3. The ZKsync Foundation initially received 4.1 billion ZK tokens ZK Token | ZK Nation

4. There is a monthly sell-off pressure of 300–400 million ZK. However, liquidity for $ZK has completely dried up. For example, on Binance, there are only slightly over 100,000 USD in buy orders. It would take just 20 million ZK to drive the price of $ZK to zero.

5. The Foundation and the team have never disclosed any information regarding their holdings of $ZK. The situation remains opaque.

6. Where did the $258 million in funding go?

7. Between 2019 and 2024, where did the substantial network fee revenue go?

The team frequently mentions buybacks, burns, and network protocol fees. There is a constant stream of positive news, but the community has yet to see any increase in the value of $ZK.

1. For example, a decentralized sequencer was mentioned many years ago but has yet to be completed. ZKPorter has also been abandoned.

2. Six months ago, mentioned buybacks, network fees, and burns, but there has been no significant progress to date. Other protocols have completed this in just one month.

3. What are Prividium’s current revenue figures? What are the associated costs, etc.?

Every month, the team receives large amounts of $ZK (for free) from unlocking, along with salary payments and other benefits. you continue to release more ZK through proposals, yet we have not seen any potential growth in $ZK. So far, I have only seen ML, the Security Committee, the Foundation, the Association, and related interest groups consistently benefiting.

Am I correct in assuming that the entire team is building a for-profit entity and enriching themselves, while shifting all costs and risks onto the community’s $ZK investors?

The Canton ($CC) project has consistently been criticized by the ZKsync team. However, they have at least delivered returns to investors and community members and have earned their support.

If transparency is improved and the revenue model is clearly defined, I will support this proposal. Otherwise, I will vote against it.

From 2021 to the present, I have been a staunch supporter of ZKsync and have contributed to the ZKsync community for four years. However, given ZKsync’s current state—particularly the team’s various practices—I cannot help but suspect that the company and team behind ZKsync are constantly “exploiting” the community for their own growth.

If you wish to refute my point, please provide data and evidence regarding $ZK’s growth.

To increase visibility. @gluk64 @the_matter_labs

[nanobro]

It’s very surprising for me that Matterlabs need funding now.
How did Matterlabs run for 2 years so far? Which fund? Is it VC fund?

And 2026 roadmap at middle of the year is kind of “late”

We should have info about this.

Also what’s will happen if Matter Labs need more fund after 1 year of this 804m zk?

[wjfwd1987]

“My other account was banned. The community needs an administrator with real vision and leadership, not just a beautiful woman who only handles administrative work.”

[Anwar]

Me too. My othrr account got banned for 3 years for the exact same reason.Back then, I was banned on the forums simply for criticizing how they were handling the treasury. I was calling them out for throwing millions of tokens into the ZKsync Association “ Donation” proposals. At the same time, they were siphoning treasury funds into Propaganda campaigns or what they gave shiny names like “Community Activation programs” or “Community experiment” and giving away massive amount of tokens to insiders like Madmax, ZKnomist and Co. to run coordinated hype and propaganda campaigns on sicial media creatung FAKED community interaction.I don’t recall the exact technical names or proposal numbers of every single one of those threads from back then, and frankly, I don’t care to, because we all know exactly what we are talking about here.They’ve been banning and silencing anyone who asks tough questions about where the treasury tokens are actually going for years. It’s a long-standing pattern of protecting their administrative power at the expense of real community feedback.

[0xmadmaxx.eth]

Hello @Anwar

ZKF has published an RFP allocating 13.6M ZK tokens, with clear details on how to participate and get funding for various activities. All details are here: RFP Explainer for Community Activation Pilot Program

We proposed a Marketing and Community Activation campaign, which was initially open to people who wanted to spread the word about ZKsync and was later closed to selected creators who delivered high-quality content.

In total, we raised 1.3M ZK for a 6+ month timeline to cover the time, tools, and personal brands of 17 different creators. (If you can do the math, you can see how much they got for it.)

If you still think it’s massive, I can’t help you here.

Results of the campaigns are public: Final Report: ZK Stack Content Experiment (Community Activation RFP #2)
and Mid-Report: ZK Stack Content Program (Community Activation RFP 2 Extension)

Last note: The RFP published by ZKF is open to everyone, and anyone can come up with an idea to participate and receive funding for different activities.

At the same time, it’s also acceptable that for some individuals, it’s easier to complain about everything instead of building something.