Vitalik Buterin has publicly stated his hope that the Zcash community resists the implementation of token voting. He characterized token-based governance as being "bad in all kinds of ways" and arguably worse than the protocol's current status quo. He warned that privacy—a core tenet of Zcash—would likely be eroded if decision-making power were handed over to the median token holder, describing such governance mechanisms as a "dark hand" that is fundamentally flawed. Buterin emphasized that while the current governance structure might have its critics, shifting to a system dominated by token holders could introduce new vulnerabilities that compromise the project's original vision of privacy. His comments have been echoed across multiple platforms, highlighting a strong stance that privacy protocols require specific protections against populism or profit-driven governance models found in standard DAOs. [Update 1] Additional reports confirm Buterin specifically described token governance as a "dark hand" and reiterated that leaving privacy decisions to the median token holder makes the feature extremely vulnerable to removal or degradation.