Zcash Jumps 7% as Bowe Moves to End $125M Grants Stream

Published October 29, 2026, 10:05 PM PKT. Based on CoinDesk and Cointelegraph reporting on October 27, 2026 on Sean Bowe's draft proposal (primary sources for the proposal), The Block and CoinMarketCap Academy summaries of the draft, Benzinga reporting on Zcash's tenth anniversary, CoinStats market analysis on October 29, 2026, and Binance and CoinGecko market data on October 29, 2026 (price sources below).

Zcash rose about 7% on October 29, 2026, trading near $1,344, after co-founder Sean Bowe proposed ending the automatic 8% block-subsidy stream that funds Zcash Community Grants, arguing the grants body already holds more than $125 million and was never designed to handle that much money. Binance data put ZECUSDT at $1,343.88 at the time of writing, up 6.09% over 24 hours, after an intraday range of $1,230.40 to $1,398.14 and $229 million of quote volume on that pair alone. CoinGecko put ZEC at $1,342.33, up 6.02% over 24 hours and 9.37% over seven days, with a market capitalization of about $22.8 billion and $1.12 billion of 24 hour trading volume across venues, and its trending list placed ZEC among the most searched coins of the day.

The proposal: turn off the 8% stream

Bowe, a Zcash co-founder and Electric Coin Company researcher, published a draft Zcash Improvement Proposal, or ZIP, late on Monday, October 26, 2026, and announced it on X on Tuesday, October 27, according to CoinDesk and Cointelegraph. "It's time to turn off the ZCG funding stream," Bowe wrote. "ZCG has over $125M in funding, and will receive millions more before the spigot is turned off. The program was never designed to handle this amount of funding." The draft would end Zcash Community Grants' 8% share of each block's subsidy at a yet unspecified activation height and redirect that share to the Network Sustainability Mechanism, a protocol level reserve designed to hold ZEC out of circulation and reissue it as future block rewards, CoinDesk reported. The grants committee would keep its existing assets and could keep awarding grants from them, and the separate 12% allocation to the Coinholder-Controlled Fund, whose holders vote quarterly on grants, would stay unchanged, according to CoinDesk and The Block.

Two limits on the proposal matter as much as its headline. First, it has no assigned activation height and is not part of NU7, the network upgrade due to activate on November 5, 2026, so it would need a future upgrade to take effect, according to The Block and Cointelegraph. Second, it does not increase Zcash's issued supply: the redirected 8% would flow to the sustainability mechanism for the remainder of the current funding stream's term, which Cointelegraph reported ends in 2028, rather than continuing to accumulate in the grants treasury. In other words, this is a draft that starts a governance fight, not a rule change that has already happened, and traders pricing it on October 29 were pricing a debate, not a done deal.

The arithmetic: $125 million held against $1.53 million a quarter

Bowe's case rests on a gap between what the grants program holds and what it spends. The grants dashboard showed 91,453 ZEC and $8.8 million in cash, against $2.4 million in outstanding grant commitments, according to the draft as summarized by CoinDesk and CoinMarketCap Academy. Valued at an illustrative $1,300 per ZEC, that nets out to about $125.3 million; at $500 per ZEC, the same holdings would be worth about $52.1 million, CoinMarketCap Academy reported. The 8% stream itself pays out about 52,560 ZEC a year, or roughly $68.3 million at $1,300 per ZEC, according to the draft. Against that inflow, the Financial Privacy Foundation reported $1.53 million in grant expenses for the first quarter of 2026, or about $6.12 million annualized, so the annual stream runs more than 11 times the program's current spending pace.

That arithmetic is why Bowe's argument survives even a much lower ZEC price. At the proposal's $500 illustration, the $52.1 million treasury would still cover more than eight years of spending at the first quarter pace, before counting anything the stream pays out before it is switched off. Bowe's separate point, reported by CoinDesk, is about risk rather than money: continuing to pile funds into Zcash Community Grants' separate custody and governance arrangements adds risk when the program already holds substantial reserves. The counterargument, which the draft itself does not settle, is whether a grants body should be deliberately shrunk while the ecosystem it funds is still building, and that is the debate the community now has to have.

What moved first: the October 27 session and a short squeeze

The price move began with the proposal, not with October 29 itself. Binance daily data show ZECUSDT closing at $1,309.60 on October 27, up from a $1,233.34 open that day, then closing nearly flat at $1,311.01 on October 28, before trading near $1,344 on October 29. CoinStats' October 29 analysis pointed to a short squeeze inside that first session: a $2.67 million four hour liquidation event at 4:00 PM UTC on October 27, $4.19 million of liquidations over 24 hours with shorts accounting for 60.5%, Binance ZECUSDT accounts 59.5% short, and funding at negative 0.0061% per eight hours. Open interest across exchanges stood at $2.75 billion, down 0.31% over seven days, which CoinStats read as shorts covering rather than a new wave of leveraged longs. Grayscale's ZCSH trust added a smaller institutional footnote, with $3.45 million of net inflows on October 27, net assets of $754.87 million and cumulative net inflows of $209.2 million, according to SoSoValue data cited by CoinStats, which noted daily flows are small relative to spot volume and support the price without explaining the session's move on their own.

The wider context: a second challenge to the dev fund

Bowe is not the first prominent voice to question the development fund this autumn. In September 2026, Haseeb Qureshi, managing partner at Dragonfly, proposed ending the Zcash developer fund when its current funding period expires, saying it risks being politicized as it approaches $100 million in value, Cointelegraph reported. Bowe's draft goes further and faster, ending one stream mid term rather than at expiry, and it lands as Zcash marks its tenth anniversary: the network launched in 2016, and October 28, 2026 was its tenth birthday, according to Benzinga. Grayscale head of research Zach Pandl told Benzinga the funding model, under which miners receive 80% of block rewards and 20% goes to a development fund, helped sustain innovation through prolonged bear markets, and that tools introduced since 2018 have strengthened Zcash against emerging threats from quantum computing and AI driven cyberattacks. Four community proposals on the development fund remain under debate, CoinStats reported, so Bowe's draft enters an argument that was already running, not a quiet room.

What to watch next

Four things decide whether this story grows or fades. First, whether the draft gains an activation height and a place in a future upgrade, or stalls as a discussion document. Second, whether the Zcash Community Grants committee responds, and whether its dashboard figures move as the debate runs. Third, the November 5 activation of NU7, which is a separate upgrade and does not enact Bowe's proposal, but will show how smoothly the network ships changes while this fight is live. Fourth, whether ZEC holds above the $1,300 area where the October 27 session closed, or gives the move back, which will show whether the market treated the proposal as a lasting supply story or a one session squeeze. MABOnChain will update this article as the proposal's status changes.

This article is news reporting and is not investment advice.

Sources

• CoinDesk, Zcash co-founder proposes ending grants funding, citing $125 million treasury (October 27, 2026), primary source for the draft ZIP, Bowe's quotes, the $125 million treasury figure, the Network Sustainability Mechanism redirect, and the unchanged 12% Coinholder-Controlled Fund
• Cointelegraph via TradingView, Zcash co-founder calls to stop funding over $125M grants program (October 27, 2026), primary source for the Tuesday X announcement, the 2028 end of the current funding period, and the September Qureshi proposal
• The Block via TradingView, Zcash co-founder proposes ending grants subsidy, citing $125 million treasury (October 27, 2026), secondary source for the Monday submission date, the missing activation height, the NU7 exclusion, and the no supply increase point
• CoinMarketCap Academy, Zcash Developer Proposes Ending ZCG's Grants Funding Stream Entirely (October 27, 2026), secondary source for the $125.3 million at $1,300 and $52.1 million at $500 valuations, the 52,560 ZEC annual stream, and the $6.12 million annualized spending comparison
• Benzinga via TradingView, Zcash Jumps 5%, Outpaces Bitcoin, ETH as 10-Year Anniversary Draws Close (October 27, 2026), secondary source for the tenth anniversary, the 80/20 block reward split, and the Pandl comments
• CoinStats, Zcash (ZEC) News Today: Why ZEC Is Up, 29 October 2026 (October 29, 2026), secondary source for the short squeeze figures, the Grayscale ZCSH flows via SoSoValue, and the four development fund proposals under debate
• Binance ZECUSDT market data and CoinGecko Zcash market data (October 29, 2026), price sources for the $1,343.88 Binance price, the $1,230.40 to $1,398.14 intraday range, the $229 million Binance quote volume, the $1,342.33 CoinGecko price, and the $22.8 billion market capitalization