Bringing Zcash to Web3Lagos 2026

[Dre_Nesthub]

After hosting a successful 6-week developer workshop, which proved highly valuable to the Zcash community, especially developers and validated a formulated curriculum. With plans to continue onboarding developers, I’d like to submit a proposal to the Zcash Community Grants (ZCG) committee seeking support for a Gold Sponsorship at Web3Lagos 2026, one of Africa’s leading developer-focused blockchain conferences organized by the Web3Bridge community.

Rather than viewing this as a traditional conference sponsorship, the goal is to use Web3Lagos as a strategic entry point for onboarding developers, founders, and builders into the Zcash ecosystem while creating a pipeline into the Web3Bridge developer community that extends well beyond the event itself by also integrating the Zcash developers sprint initiative recently drafted.

Why Web3Lagos?

Web3Bridge has established itself as one of Africa’s most respected blockchain developer education communities, consistently training developers and connecting them with opportunities across the broader Web3 ecosystem.

Web3Lagos brings together thousands of attendees, dozens of speakers, ecosystem partners, and technical workshops over three days, making it an ideal environment to introduce Zcash to developers who are actively building blockchain products. Previous editions have attracted more than 2,400 attendees, 73 speakers, and over 40 sponsors and partners across multiple technical tracks.

Africa continues to produce a rapidly growing population of blockchain developers, yet relatively few have had the opportunity to explore privacy-preserving technologies or integrate ZEC into their applications. This initiative aims to help close that gap.

This is the link to the proposal here.

Goals

The primary objective is to convert conference attendees into long-term contributors to the Zcash ecosystem.

Some of the planned outcomes include:

• Introducing developers to the Zcash ecosystem and its privacy technologies.

• Demonstrating how ZEC can be integrated into applications and payment flows.

• Onboarding developers into existing Zcash learning resources and builder communities.

• Identifying teams interested in experimenting with Zcash in their products.

• Building relationships with founders, infrastructure providers, and ecosystem partners.

Planned Activities

If funded, our presence at Web3Lagos would include:

• A dedicated Zcash booth throughout the conference.

• Live demonstrations of Zcash wallets and developer tooling.

• Wallet setups and test transactions.

• A virtual 2-day developer sprint with web3Bridge Students

• One-on-one onboarding for developers interested in building on Zcash.

• Distribution of educational resources and developer documentation.

• Networking with founders, builders, and ecosystem partners.

• Collection of developer interest for post-event workshops and office hours.

The booth will serve as both an educational space and an onboarding hub where attendees can learn about shielded transactions, privacy-preserving payments, and the growing Zcash developer ecosystem.

Beyond the Conference

One of the most important aspects of this proposal is that the conference is not the final deliverable.

Developers who engage with Zcash during Web3Lagos will be invited into a structured follow-up program that includes technical workshops, office hours, builder support, and ongoing community engagement. The objective is to transform conference conversations into real experimentation, open-source contributions, and eventually production-ready ZEC integrations.

By treating the conference as the beginning of a builder journey rather than a standalone marketing activity, we hope to create sustained value for the ecosystem.

Expected Impact

Success will be measured through outcomes such as:

• Number of developers onboarded.

• Wallet creations.

• Developer community growth.

• Participation in follow-up workshops.

• Prototype ZEC integrations.

• Teams continuing to build after the conference.

• New contributors entering the Zcash ecosystem.

A comprehensive report documenting activities, metrics, lessons learned, and follow-up outcomes will be published after the event.

I look forward to hearing community feedback on the proposal.

[CryptoEpoch]

I think this is one of the most effective ways to introduce Zcash to new audiences.

Rather than building an audience from scratch, you’re meeting people who are already active in Web3 and creating an opportunity to introduce financial privacy in a relevant context.

Sometimes adoption isn’t about reaching more people—it’s about reaching the right people. Wishing you a successful event!

[elzz-ux]

Hello Dre, thanks for putting this together. I had a couple of questions after reading through the proposal that I’d appreciate some clarification on.

First, the proposal references previous editions attracting over 2,400 attendees, while the 2026 edition is expected to host around 800 participants. Is the 800 figure referring only to the physical event, or has the event been scaled down this year? I’m just trying to better understand the assumptions behind the projected reach.

Secondly, the proposal positions this as a developer onboarding initiative, but some of the primary success metrics (500 booth engagements and 200 wallet downloads) seem to measure general event engagement rather than developer activation. How do you intend to measure whether developers meaningfully engaged with the technical content or took concrete steps toward building within the Zcash ecosystem?

[Dre_Nesthub]

Thank you @elzz-ux for raising these points! I appreciate the opportunity to clarify the assumptions and give you a clearer picture of how this activation is structured.

@elzz-ux

First, the proposal references previous editions attracting over 2,400 attendees, while the 2026 edition is expected to host around 800 participants. Is the 800 figure referring only to the physical event, or has the event been scaled down this year? I’m just trying to better understand the assumptions behind the projected reach.

1. Clarification on Attendee Metrics & Event Scale

To clarify the numbers from the sponsorship deck: 2,400+ attendees represents the cumulative total of attendees across the past four editions of the conference. This translates to an average of roughly 600 participants per year.

For this year, the fifth anniversary of the event, it is actually scaling up to an anticipated 800 physical, in-person attendees. While the event has been optimized into a high-intensity 2-day format (compared to the previous 3-day structure), the target footprint for physical traction is larger than previous individual years. The 800 figure refers strictly to this curated, physical crowd.

@elzz-ux

Secondly, the proposal positions this as a developer onboarding initiative, but some of the primary success metrics (500 booth engagements and 200 wallet downloads) seem to measure general event engagement rather than developer activation. How do you intend to measure whether developers meaningfully engaged with the technical content or took concrete steps toward building within the Zcash ecosystem?

2. Measuring Developer Activation vs. Booth Engagement

You are entirely correct that the primary metric is booth engagements and wallet downloads, which represent standard, top-of-funnel visibility metrics for sponsorships. We view the booth as an essential touchpoint where the initial discovery and meaningful, face-to-face conversations happen.

However, our strategy for developer activation goes much deeper and is highly tailored to the builder audience:

• The ZK Cohort Partnership: Web3Bridge launched a dedicated Zero-Knowledge (ZK) training cohort in 2025, producing a strong, pre-vetted pool of developers who already understand foundational cryptographic concepts. We are partnering directly with Web3Bridge to plug these specific students and alumni into our track.

• Developer Sprint & Build Challenge: We are organizing a practical developer sprint specifically designed for these builders. This will lead into a targeted mini-build challenge, where developers will immediately apply what they’ve learned to build a simple, functional application using the Z3 Stack to interact with the Zcash protocol.

• Ecosystem Showcases & Direct Onboarding: At the booth, we will actively showcase successful projects built on Zcash to visually prove what is possible regarding privacy-preserving DApp development. We’ll also have attendees from the developer sprint engage the booth. Developers who engage deeply will be directly funnelled into the Zcash Discord and a localized developer registry.

Every layer of this pipeline, from booth scans to workshop attendance, Discord joins, and build challenge submissions, will be tracked and documented in our post-event metrics report. This ensures we are measuring both general ecosystem awareness and deep, practical builder activation.

[elzz-ux]

Thanks for the clarification. The partnership with the Web3Bridge ZK cohort helps me better understand the developer focus, although this wasn’t stated anywhere in the proposal.

My question about how developer activation itself will be measured is still unanswered though.

For example, what would qualify someone as an “activated developer” for the purposes of this proposal?
Is it attendance at the sprint, completion of the build challenge, joining the developer registry, building a prototype or some other measurable milestone?

I’m asking because the proposal’s primary objective is developer onboarding, cos as it stands there isn’t a clearly defined activation metric to evaluate the project’s impact.

[Dre_Nesthub]

I understand your concern. To keep this initiative fully accountable, we need a definition of what ‘activation’ means.

We are measuring developer activation across three progressive tiers:

• Tier 1: Educational (Target: 40+ Devs) – Attend the Web3Bridge x Zcash workshop sprint, join the Zcash Discord and be added to our Zcash Developer Registry.

• Tier 2: Practical (Target: 15–20 Devs) – Clone our Zingolib/Z3 Stack starter repos, set up a local dev environment, and complete the guided coding exercises.

• Tier 3: Contribution (Target: 5–8 Projects) – Submit a functional, running prototype (e.g., transaction script, payment UX) to the Mini-Build Challenge.

A minimum of 15 “Tier 2” (Practically Activated) developers, resulting in at least 5 functional “Tier 3” prototype submissions built using the Z3 Stack or Zingolib SDKs.

I will update the official proposal text to reflect these exact metrics and our partnership with Web3Bridge. Thank you for helping us make this proposal much tighter

[ZCG]

@Dre_Nesthub at the most recent meeting, ZCG voted to approve this proposal. Congratulations!

To keep the community informed, ZCG requests that you provide monthly updates via the forum in this thread.

Please check your forum inbox for a direct message from FPF with important next steps, including a link to the Milestone Payment Request Form and your unique validation code for submitting payment requests.

[Dre_Nesthub]

Thank you @ZCG for approving this proposal

I’ll proceed with next steps and ensure I send the full detailed report for this activation after the event

Thank you for the support

[theKroy]

please could you share the flyer or link to this event?

[Dre_Nesthub]

web3bridge

This is the link to the event

[theKroy]

thank you, sumbitted the attendance application, I’d make time to be present to provide support. well done man

[Dre_Nesthub]

I’d get you a ticket definitely

[Dre_Nesthub]

@ZCG Partnership has been sealed successfully

Web3Lagos Conference

More annoucement coming as we move closer to the day of the event
Information on the 2 day developer sprint with web3bridge coming soon

[Dre_Nesthub]

As part of the deliverable for the Web3Lagos conference Sponsorship and efforts to expand Zcash developer education and create stronger pathways for developers to enter the ecosystem, we’re bringing the Zcash Developers Sprint to the Web3Bridge community.

The Developer Sprint is a practical, two-day learning experience designed to introduce developers to the Zcash ecosystem and, more importantly, give them an opportunity to learn by building.

The sprint will take place on:

20th–21st August
7:00 PM WAT daily
In partnership with Web3Bridge

Web3Bridge has created a strong learning environment for developers entering the Web3 ecosystem. Bringing Zcash into this environment gives students an opportunity to explore a different side of blockchain development — privacy-preserving applications.

Rather than approaching Zcash purely from a theoretical perspective, the sprint is designed around practical learning.

The goal is to move participants through a simple cycle:

Learn → Build → Ship

What we’ll explore

Participants will be introduced to the Zcash ecosystem and the foundations they need to begin building privacy-first applications.

The sprint will focus on:

• Understanding Zcash and financial privacy
• Exploring the Zcash ecosystem
• Understanding how developers can build on Zcash
• Introduction to privacy-preserving application development
• Hands-on development
• Experimentation and prototyping
• Building practical projects around what participants learn

The emphasis throughout the sprint will be learning by shipping.

By the end of the two days, participants should have a much clearer understanding of Zcash and, more importantly, a starting point from which they can continue exploring and building.

Building the Next Generation of Privacy Developers

This sprint is part of a broader effort to expand Zcash developer education across African developer communities.

We’ve previously experimented with longer developer workshops, guest sessions with ecosystem builders, hands-on build challenges, and university-based Developer Sprints.

The Web3Bridge Developer Sprint is another step toward creating a repeatable pathway:

Discover Zcash → Learn → Build → Experiment → Contribute

We’re particularly excited about bringing this experience to developers who may be encountering Zcash for the first time.

Zcash Developers Sprint (Web3bridge) · Luma

[Dre_Nesthub]

Zcash @ Web3Lagos 2026 Report

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Introduction

Following ZCG approval of the Web3Lagos 2026 Gold Sponsorship proposal, Zcash joined Web3Lagos 5.0 Web3Bridge’s flagship annual developer conference and one of the largest Web3 developer gatherings in Africa as a Gold Sponsor.
Ahead of the conference, we ran the Zcash Developers Sprint in direct partnership with Web3Bridge; the organizers of the conference, a 2-day, learn-by-building program designed to move participants through the cycle we’ve been repeating across our developer education work: Learn → Build → Ship.

This report covers both phases: the developer sprint and the conference itself, including the speaker session on Zcash and a panel appearance.

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Sponsorship Scope

As a Gold Sponsor, Zcash received:

• A dedicated exhibition booth throughout the conference
• A speaker session
• Panel session participation
• Event branding and program placement
• Social media mentions and visibility

In addition to the sponsorship package, we ran the Zcash Developers Sprint as a standalone deliverable in partnership with Web3Bridge, aimed specifically at onboarding active builders rather than just conference visibility.

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The Zcash Developers Sprint (2 Days)

Dates: August 20th–21st, 2026, 7:00 PM WAT daily
Partner: Web3Bridge
Format: Virtual and Practical, hands-on learning sprint: Learn → Build → Ship

Rather than approaching Zcash from a purely theoretical angle, the sprint was built around getting developers writing code and shipping something within two days. We walked participants through:

• Understanding Zcash and financial privacy
• Exploring the Zcash ecosystem and how developers can build on it
• An introduction to privacy-preserving application development
• Hands-on development using the Z3 Stack and Zingolib SDKs
• Experimentation, prototyping, and building practical projects around what participants learned

The sprint intentionally targeted developers encountering Zcash for the first time, plugging into Web3Bridge’s existing developer pipeline, including alumni from their Zero-Knowledge training cohort, rather than trying to build an audience from scratch.

Sprint Outcome: 6 Projects Shipped

By the end of the sprint, participants shipped 6 functional prototypes built using the Z3 Stack meeting the target we committed to in the original proposal (5–8 functional prototype submissions).

Builder(s)	Project	Link	Repo
Bamigboye Ayodeji Temitope (@0xSkinny001)	ZECDonation	zec-donation.vercel.app	github.com/Skinny001/ZECDonation
Joshua Onazi	zecPulse	zec-pulse.vercel.app	github.com/joshuaonazi/zecPulse
Isaac Makinde	zpulse	zpulse-v1.vercel.app	github.com/Oluwa-Laughter/zpulse
Irmiya Jethro Mbata (@dev_jaytee)	zecproof	zecproof.vercel.app	github.com/jayteemoney/zecproof
Hammed Ali Oyeleye, Adesanya Abdurrahman, Abdulmuiz Abdulkabir	zecceipt	zecceipt.vercel.app	github.com/Alike001/zecceipt
Vida (Ademiju Victor)	zec-watch	zec-watch.vercel.app	github.com/0xVida/zec-watch

Nine builders in total across these six teams shipped working prototypes; a mix of tipping, escrow, receipts, donations, and monitoring tools, all built on top of Zcash.

We had a total of 35 developers joined us virtually for the 2 days session and 15 developers who joined us at the web3bridge physical location for an hands-on session with the web3bridge students got through the guided coding exercises without necessarily shipping a full prototype.
And this planted a seed we look forward to water and grow.

The winners were:
1st

AlikeX

Github
URL

2nd

LAUGHTER

Github
URL

3rd

Web3Cryptic

GitHub
URL

This is the grading report for each project

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Conference Activities

Speaker Session: “Zcash: The Privacy Preserving Currency”

I took the stage to walk the audience through what Zcash is at a foundational level, with a specific focus on dismantling the idea that privacy and compliance are opposites. The core argument: privacy done right isn’t about hiding everything from everyone; it’s about choosing who gets to see what, and selective disclosure means you can prove exactly what a regulator, auditor, or partner needs to see without exposing your entire financial life to the internet. the privacy compliance nexus was also also emphasized in order to give regulators an idea of

Given the mixed audience; builders, developers, regulators, creatives, and researchers the talk deliberately avoided heavy protocol jargon in favor of framing privacy through real, relatable scenarios.
The event was livestreamed on X for virtual veiwers:
Day 1: Web3Lagos Conference on X: "You can join our livestream 🚀 https://t.co/kaLxj2VvU3" / X
Day 2: Web3Lagos Conference on X: "https://t.co/nnvXSatZCj" / X

Panel: DePIN and Decentralized AI (DeAI)

I also joined a panel discussion on Depin and decentralized AI. The same privacy tension that anchors Zcash’s design showed up again here in a different context: as AI agents increasingly transact and make decisions on people’s behalf, the question of who gets visibility into that activity becomes just as urgent as it is for money. It was a good opportunity to connect Zcash’s core thesis to a conversation the audience wasn’t necessarily expecting to hear it in.

Booth Presence

The Zcash booth ran throughout the conference alongside the speaker session and panel, giving attendees a place to ask questions, see live wallet demos, and get pointed toward the developer resources and channels sprint outcomes and community channels. We capture booth conversations or session attendance, we also had over 15 developers join the telegram community for developers

*Highlights

1. A major hightlights was when Kroy and Elzz linked up with See hun of Lava VC and he claimed to love zcash so much and have been holding ZEC for a long time and how it has helped his life.
2. Conversation with Markus of XYO labs on intergrating Zcash ZKs into their DePIN product
3. Conversations with exchanges like resolva on integrating ZEC into their product and these conversations are still ongoing
4. Real life connections with contributors in Nigeria was really a sight to behold and it made my day
5. Conversations with Dev community leads on hosting Developer sprints with their Students

The media document are uploaded here
It includes the Pictures and Videos from the conference
it also include Recordings of the 2 days Developers sprint.

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Key Metrics

Metric	Result
Projects shipped during sprint (Tier 3)	6
Quality Conversations	100+
Developers onboards @ booth	*15
New Discord joins	133
ZODL Android downloads	96
ZODL iOS downloads	62
Total ZODL downloads	158

Against the original proposal’s Tier 3 target of 5–8 functional prototypes, the sprint landed squarely in range at 6. The Discord and wallet download numbers reflect a healthy top-of-funnel result on top of that deeper builder activation, 158 total downloads and 133 new community members meant a lot to me though.

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Challenges

Due to a lesser attendance than we anticipated we couldn’t reach the 200 downloads milestones we planned for but the quality of builders interaction made up for this challange.

Biggest Wins

The clearest win here is that the sprint didn’t just introduce developers to Zcash conceptually — it produced 6 working prototypes (ZECDonation, zecPulse, zpulse, zecproof, zecceipt, and zec-watch) from a Web3Bridge developer pipeline where most participants were encountering Zcash for the first time. That’s the outcome the original proposal was built around: treating the conference and sprint as the start of a builder journey, not a one-off brand touchpoint.

Pairing that with 158 wallet downloads and 133 new Discord members across the same window gives us both a builder-depth result and a broader awareness result from a single activation.

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What Happens Next

• The 6 sprint projects are being followed up with directly, the goal is to keep at least some of them alive past the sprint rather than let them end at demo day and present upgraded version for future developers initiatives.
• New Discord members from this activation will be brought into ongoing onboarding and community engagement rather than left as a one-time join count. These projects will be continuoulsy mentored to help improve their project.

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Conclusion

Web3Lagos 2026 validated the same thesis behind the original proposal: meeting developers where they already are, and giving them a structured, short window to build rather than just listen, produces real output. Six shipped prototypes from a two-day sprint, alongside strong Discord and wallet growth, shows this kind of activation can move people from curiosity to contribution within days.
Thank you to Web3Bridge for the partnership, and to @ZCG for approving our application and @ZecHub for the support. Also a huge thanks to @elzz-ux @theKroy @Monsignoree @Kenzo Faavour @Omegaonchain and @Cjfrankie repping Zcash Nigeria for their physical presence and support.

[dismad]

Way to go, nice job!