Zcash Community Pays Off the Developer to Avoid Blockchain Split Ahead of Upcoming ‘Overwinter’ Update

Zcash Community Pays Off the Developer to Avoid Blockchain Split Ahead of Upcoming ‘Overwinter’ Update
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The Zcash community just saved its upcoming Overwinter upgrade from a major threat. The update, despite all the attempts of Zcash developers, could have been derailed by a wallet developer who had threatened to split the network earlier this week if he was not paid for his work. The community therefore decided to pay him off instead of taking any other route, and that way just saved the upcoming Overwinter update from unwanted menace.

The story began on Tuesday when a Zcash wallet developer who goes by the name of D. Jane Mercer published a chilling forum post on official Zcash forum. Mercer is the sole developer and maintainer of Zcash Windows wallet, but according to him he was not being paid for his work on the wallet. Therefore, he said that if he was not paid he would cease the development of Zcash Windows wallet and also release a rebranded Zcash competitor. He said:

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“My reality has been funded of late almost completely by bounties, contracts and donations in the Komodo and HUSH platform communities, and there currently no time pressure comparable to all this looming Overwinter/Sapling stuff going on in that corner of the Zcash Fork Universe.”

Basically he was saying that for last few months his finances have almost completely been sustained by bounties, donations, contracts and developer fees of some other projects. And those projects also don’t have any pressure of time or deadlines, unlike this Zcash Overwinter stuff. He added:

“…and now time for some difficult Real Talk™, and that is that WinZEC and its predecessors Zcash4win and Zcash4mac have never really paid for themselves. The only time aside from a few random, sizable donations/sponsorships that paid for 1-2 months of living expOenses, I have unfortunately rediscovered what other bitcoin (and other) wallet developers have since clued me in to, and that is that funding GUI wallet development through dev fees just does not pay enough for ongoing maintenance and support. If nothing else, users just Will Not Stand for paying a wallet dev fee more than the coins default TX fee, just as a general rule, because of human nature and psychology.”

WinZEC is the wallet that Mercer develops and maintains. Adding further he said:

“If some person(s) and/or entitie(s) doesn’t pop up and offer funding for all of the above, I’m going to have to EOL (End of Life) WinZEC and just not do MacZEC…it just is not financially tenable without a substantial investment from SOMEWHERE in my reality right now.”

Besides ending the support for WinZEC Mercer also threatened to “pull off a Bitcoin cash” (split the network) if his demands are not met.

So finally the Zcash community came ahead and about 80 ZEC – effectively $14,286 USD – were transferred to his Zcash wallet, post which Mercer decided to drop his severe plans. He told Coindesk:

“People have thrown enough in the kitty for a few months living expenses, so that’s all well and good.”

Now let’s see how smoothly the Overwinter update scheduled for 25th of June goes.