How much of the deferred development fund has actually been disbursed. Since Network Upgrade 6 (NU6) on 2024-11-23, a share of each block reward accrues to an on-chain LOCKBOX rather than going straight to recipients, and is released by a later consensus decision.
The balance is read from the node’s own valuePools every day, so this is measured rather than reconstructed from a schedule. Accrual and payout are derived from the day-over-day CHANGE in that balance: a rise is accrual, a fall is a disbursement.
The balance alone cannot tell "nothing accrued" apart from "accrued and paid out the same amount". Accumulating the two separately makes the paid-out share a ratio of totals rather than of endpoints. All three lines are ZEC on one axis, zero-based.
Zcash has funded development out of the block reward for most of its life, but not in one way. The Founders’ Reward paid a slice directly to founders until the first halving in November 2020. ZIP-1014 (a Zcash Improvement Proposal) then created a Dev Fund, which paid a slice directly to named recipients. Both were paid out as they were earned, so there was nothing to track: the schedule was the answer.
Network Upgrade 6 (NU6) changed the shape, not just the share. Since November 2024 part of each block reward accrues to an on-chain lockbox instead of going to anyone. It is real issued ZEC, it sits in a consensus-enforced pool, and it is released only by a later decision. So for the first time the question “how much has the dev fund actually been paid?” has an answer that differs from the schedule — and that gap is what this chart is.
Measured, not reconstructed. The balance is read from the node’s own valuePools every day. What came in and what went out are worked out from the day-to-day change in that balance. The balance alone cannot separate “nothing came in” from “the same amount came in and went out”, so the two are counted separately. The paid-out share is then a ratio of totals rather than of endpoints.
Lockbox ZEC is already in the supply. It was issued when the block was mined, so it counts in total supply and in inflation on the day it accrued, not on the day it is spent. A release moves coins that already exist; it issues nothing.