I think we should disabuse ourselves of the notion that Eric has malintent or perverse incentives here. Yes, he is a partner with INB/Xiaolai, but he has made it clear that he was offering his time to run the ZEF as a volunteer. I think he’d be more than happy for someone else well qualified to step forward to run it, perhaps selected by the community, he was just offering himself as an existential proof that someone would be willing to serve in such a role.

I think with regards to the actual proposal, I think it could be done in a more voluntary manner. It’s not uncommon when a company goes public (or other major event) for the purchasers to stipulate requirements about outstanding shares (e.g., 95% must be subject to 6-month lockup). These conditions are often not already agreed to by the current shareholders, but the company holds an all hands and says “we’re trying to go public. We ask you to agree to not sell your shares for 6 months – if we don’t have enough people sign on, we won’t be able to go public.” A similar thing could be done to fund the ZEF – each FR holder could be asked to give a percentage of their FR to the fund. If a large enough percentage agrees to (e.g., views their ZEC holdings as more valuable with the new FR distribution to the ZEF) then it goes forward. If not, it doesn’t, and the rest of the ZEC community decides how to proceed (e.g., soft-forking out a percentage of the FR).

The ZEF should be, in my opinion, formed as a B-Corp beholden to improving the ZEC community with the volunteering FR recipients as shareholders. As such, profits should be aggressively reinvested into ZEF’s efforts to improve ZEC community rather than dividends. Perhaps, above some ‘reverse hurdle’ rate of return, ZEF shareholders (FR volunteers) can receive dividends.

My guess is that overall, a FR funded ZEF would be accretive for FR recipients overall, even if represents an immediate decrease in expected future profits.