Treasure Delegate Council (TDC) | Wind Down

General
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Summary

The Treasure Delegate Council (TDC) was formed in October 2024 to champion Treasure’s voice in external governance. With Treasure now embarking on a bold new strategic direction - outlined in the recent official statement - continuation of the TDC’s role within the ZKsync ecosystem is no longer necessary.

In light of this shift, we’ve prepared a summary of the Council’s work to date for the Treasure community to digest. Going forward, the TDC members are proposing to waive all future payments from May onwards, aligning with the evolving priorities of the DAO. In addition, as part of this wind-down, the Voting multisig previously used by the ARC on Arbitrum will have its ownership transferred to Flook.

Perspective on the ZKnation

The transition from Arbitrum to ZKsync required a major shift for the TDC. Culturally and structurally, ZK Nation operates very differently from Arbitrum, with a new set of stakeholders and governance systems to navigate. ZKsync’s governance is more structured, placing far less emphasis on onchain voting for smaller budget items and instead prioritizing DAO approved technical upgrades and large-scale incentive programs driven by onchain metrics over human discretion. This created a more focused, less noisy environment - a positive development for DAO governance.

Community support for new, spending-focused proposals has been limited- most notably demonstrated by the withdrawal of both the Ignite and Catalyst Programs. As a result, governance activity within ZKsync has largely concentrated on technical upgrades, with relatively little momentum behind broader, non-technical DAO initiatives.

This focus on core infrastructure makes sense, particularly given the challenges that can arise in highly decentralized, DAO-led environments. That said, we’re hopeful that more community-driven ideas and initiatives will emerge from within ZKnation as the ecosystem matures.

Throughout, we’ve been consistently impressed by the professionalism, commitment, and ambition of ZKnation stakeholders. It’s clear this community is laying the groundwork for a world-class technology stack—and we’re excited to see what’s next.

Activity

TDC members have been attending bi-weekly governance meetings, and commenting and engaging on the ZKnation forum. Voting activity was as follows:

Please note, due to issues with the Safe to Tally configuration post Bybit Hack, several of our votes could not be successfully executed onchain. We were actively working with the Tally team to address this issue up until the pivot in this strategic direction.

Proposal Ideation

During our time within the ZKnation we also worked on several independent proposals we intended to progress through onchain governance. Namely:

  • Empower Incentive Program
    • The Empower Incentive Program aimed to incentivize growth for consumer, gaming, and social-focused Layer 2 (L2) solutions on ZKsync by rewarding L2’s with incentives based on new and active users. These funds will be reinvested by the L2 into ecosystem expansion and user engagement initiatives. A 6-month pilot program was intended to test a scalable and adaptive incentive model, focusing on ecosystem growth and fostering collaboration across key application categories.
    • Work on the Empower Incentive Program was paused due to the launch of the Zksync Catalyst Program led by Areta and Founders Factory which looks to acheive similar aims. Our detailed feedback on this proposal can be viewed here.
    • Unfortunately however, after several months of discussion support for the Catalyst was ultimately withdrawn, with Matter Labs noting “We have decided that Matter Lab’s resourcing should focus is on protocol-development-specific token programs—particularly those driving chain-level privacy, innovation in ZK apps, and interoperability. There is still much work left to be done to make ZK Stack the best product out there on the market and the Elastic Network to gain network momentum. This is critical groundwork that we need to lay first.
  • Audit Subsidy Program
    • The ZKsync Audit Subsidy Program was a strategic initiative aimed at boosting the security and quality of projects building on ZKsync by helping cover the cost of smart contract audits. By removing a key financial barrier, the program empowered early-stage teams to launch with confidence, attracted top builders to the ecosystem, and reinforced trust in the network’s technical foundation. It was backed by a governance committee to ensure fair and transparent decision-making, with a focus on supporting high-potential projects aligned with ZKsync’s long-term priorities. The goal was simple: make secure, high-quality deployments the standard on ZKsync, and accelerate ecosystem growth through practical, targeted support.
    • We paused continued work on the Audit Subsidy Program once the ZKsync Foundation notified the Treasure team that they had their own similar proposal in the works. We intended to feed in the insights and groundwork laid developing our Audit Subsidy Program into the Foundation led proposal.

Next Steps

With Treasure’s transition away from the Treasure Chain, the TDC will be pausing its involvement in ZKsync governance. All TDC members have agreed to waive their remaining payments effective May 1st.

Additionally, ownership of the voting multisig for the Arbitrum DAO will be transferred to Flook. This will allow his studio to make inroads in that ecosystem, softening the blow of losing Treasure Chain and their ZK grant.

Across both Arbitrum and ZKsync, we’ve worked to establish Treasure as an active, engaged, and thoughtful delegate - committed to supporting the growth and success of every DAO we’ve served and best representing Gaming and Treasure within them. Decentralized governance is rarely simple, but we’re proud of the voice we’ve brought and the values we’ve upheld. The next chapter awaits - and we’ll be watching with pride as Treasure continues to chart a course towards a new future.