ZKsync’s Co-Creator Wants to Redesign Governance, Toward a Token with Real Utility and Value Capture

So, Alex Gluchowski, co-creator of ZKsync, one of the biggest scaling solutions built on Ethereum, just proposed a major shift: moving the project’s governance token into one that has actual economic utility and value capture.

If this idea moves forward, it could mean the next evolution of ZKsync’s token isn’t just for voting on proposals but could play an active role in how the network functions, possibly through staking, fee distribution, or validator incentives. Basically, a token that does more than sit in wallets waiting for governance snapshots.

This feels like a direct response to what’s been happening across the Layer-2 space lately. Many governance tokens have struggled to hold value because they lack true economic use cases. By integrating value capture, ZKsync could potentially turn its token into something that actually reflects the network’s activity, more like $ETH than a passive governance coin.

The bigger question: Can they pull it off without centralizing control or alienating early holders? It’s a delicate balance, economic utility sounds great on paper, but it changes the dynamics of decentralization and incentives.

If done right though, ZKsync might set the next standard for L2 token design, a shift from vote tokens to value tokens.

What do you think, should governance tokens evolve this way, or does this risk turning everything into another version of a utility coin?