The Gov Team is excited to announce ZK Governance Program Systems - or ZKGPS. This entity supports regulatory compliance and accountability for proposal service providers and oversight steering committees.
What is ZKGPS?
ZKGPS is a Cayman ownerless foundation. The purpose of this entity is to:
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KYC individuals and entities who receive ZK tokens through governance proposals (excluding users); and
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Contract with service providers and/or SteerCo members, to ensure that providers and proposal participants are legally bound to provide services rather than relying on the specification of a proposal and a multisig (all onchain).
- Steering Committees (minter admins / multisig signers / veto executors)
- Service Providers/Vendors for proposal operations (service agreements)
An example use case for ZKGPS is to enter into contracts and complete KYC with Ignite Program participants such as the DeFi Steering Committee, and service providers such as Merkl, OBL, and Hype.
Why is ZKGPS necessary?
All Token Program service providers and any committee participant sign a contract with ZKGPS. This combines token mechanics, such as the Capped Minter, with legal responsibilities to deliver the scope of each Token Program. Legal contracts address any accountability gaps from the onchain program smart-contracts.
Performing KYC/KYB supports regulatory compliance and reduces the risk of Token Assembly funds being distributed to illicit addresses. KYC/KYB will focus on any individual and entity who receives ZK tokens directly from the Token Program allocation (e.g. service providers, and program admins receiving ZK to run a program).
ZKGPS Director & Service Provider Details
ZKGPS was established on October 24th 2024. The Director of ZKGPS is responsible for coordinating contracts with appropriate parties and offering support for KYC/KYB.
All contracts take effect after a proposal is approved onchain by the Token Assembly. At the moment, KYC/KYB of service providers and the steering committee is recommended to take place as soon as a proposal is submitted onchain. This operational process supports compliance and accountability directly upon Token Assembly approval of Token programs (i.e. deployment of program-related capped minters).
Funding
ZKGPS was bootstrapped by an allocation of 433K ZK from the first TPP. In this case, this was [TPP-1] ZKsync Ignite. To continue services to the ZKsync governance ecosystem, ZKGPS may continue to seek funding from TPPs that stand to benefit from the provision of services it offers. ZKGPS support may not be necessary for all TPPs, such as ones that are fully autonomous.
Role of the ZKsync Association
The ZKsync Association recognized the need for such an entity upon governance launching in September 2024. In service of the Token Assembly, the Gov Team supported the setup of the entity and the effort to get it operational. However, neither the ZKsync Association nor the Gov Team controls ZKGPS. It has been designed to operate independently.
To the extent needed, the Gov Team will work closely with the Director of ZKGPS to connect proposal authors, multisig signers and service providers with ZKGPS in order to complete KYC and coordinate contracts.
The ZKsync Association was supported by MetaLeX in the development of this model. The ZKsync Association will update the TPP Guidelines with this information, as well as any additional operational details, in the coming weeks. Similar to the CappedMinter V2, the ZKsync Association will continue to monitor the effectiveness of ZKGPS and suggest any changes as needed.