Miners process transactions and receive fees from users (supply-side fees).

Zcash is a distributed ledger for transfer and store of value (a blockchain). Zcash was founded by Matthew Green, Ian Miers, Christina Garman and launched in 2016.

ZEC holders own and govern the protocol. They currently do not take a cut of the total transaction fees paid by users (revenue). Zcash’s investors include Fenbushi Capital, Pantera Capital, Digital Currency Group, etc.

governance

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Blockchains (L1)

Zcash

# Zcash Expenses Methodology

## 1. Overview

The Zcash expenses metric measures the daily cost of operating the Zcash network by calculating the total value of block rewards (token incentives) paid to miners. This metric represents the network's daily operating expenses, as block rewards are the primary cost of maintaining network security and processing transactions. The calculation identifies coinbase transactions (which distribute block rewards), aggregates them daily, and converts the values to USD.

## 2. Data sources

- **Zcash blockchain transaction data**: Raw transaction records including transaction IDs, block timestamps, block numbers, and transaction outputs with values in zatoshis
- **Coinbase transaction flags**: Transaction metadata indicating which transactions are coinbase transactions (block reward distributions)  
- **End-of-day token price feeds**: ZEC price data sourced via coingecko API using the 'zcash' identifier
- **Token metadata**: ZEC token information including symbol, decimal places, and price feed identifiers

## 3. Step-by-step calculation

### Component A: Block reward extraction
- **Purpose**: Identify and extract block rewards from Zcash coinbase transactions
- **Logic**: Query Zcash transaction data and filter for transactions where `is_coinbase` equals true, indicating these are block reward transactions. For each coinbase transaction, unnest the `outputs` array to access individual transaction outputs. Extract the `valueZat` field from each output and convert to numeric format. Sum all output values for each transaction to calculate the total block reward per transaction, grouping by `block_timestamp`, `block_number`, and `txid`.
- **Key fields**: `block_timestamp` for timing, `block_number` for block identification, `txid` for transaction identification, and `valueZat` for the reward amount in zatoshis

### Component B: Daily aggregation and unit conversion  
- **Purpose**: Aggregate block rewards by day and convert from zatoshis to ZEC
- **Logic**: Group the block reward data by day using timestamp truncation to daily boundaries. Sum all `block_reward_zat` values for each day to get total daily incentives. Convert the zatoshi amounts to ZEC by dividing by 1e8 (100 million zatoshis = 1 ZEC). Add metadata fields including chain identifier ('zcash'), token symbol ('ZEC'), contract name, and coingecko identifier for price lookups.
- **Key fields**: `daily_timestamp` for the aggregation period, `total_incentives_zat` for daily zatoshi totals, and `token_incentives_native` for ZEC amounts

### Component C: USD conversion and metric formatting
- **Purpose**: Convert ZEC amounts to USD and apply standard metric schema
- **Logic**: Apply the USD conversion macro using end-of-day ZEC price feeds identified by the coingecko ID 'zcash'. The conversion uses the `convert_to_usd_and_correct_decimals` macro without decimal correction since ZEC amounts are already in proper units. Add business categorization fields including business line ('Blockchain'), market sector ('blockchains_l1'), and business segment ('blockchain'). Apply the `finalize_metric_token_incentives` macro to ensure schema compliance and fill any data gaps using a zero-fill strategy.
- **Key fields**: `token_incentives` for the USD-converted amounts, business categorization fields, and standardized timestamp and chain identifiers

### Final aggregation
- **Combining components**: The final expenses metric simply renames the `token_incentives` field as `expenses` to reflect that block rewards represent network operating costs
- **Currency conversion**: ZEC amounts are converted to USD using end-of-day price feeds from coingecko, with the conversion applied after daily aggregation
- **Time aggregation**: Data is aggregated to daily boundaries using timestamp truncation, with any missing days filled with zero values
- **Final calculation**: Daily expenses equal the sum of all block rewards issued that day, converted from zatoshis to ZEC (divided by 1e8) and then to USD using daily ZEC prices

*This methodology was automatically generated by Token Terminal's methodology analyzer.*

Total project operating and incentive expenses.

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Expenses

Expenses

Competitive landscape