I appreciate the substantive questions. I will try to answer them carefully, because I think this proposal is really about a deeper question: whether Zcash should support serious policy education in Washington, DC, and what kind of policy engagement is consistent with Zcash and cypherpunk values.
I’ll start with the organizational clarifications.
This proposal is not on behalf of Zodl. I disclosed my current role because I think affiliations should be transparent, but the applicant is PGP for Crypto, LLC. Project Glitch is the lead organizer and program partner. PGP is providing in-kind and administrative support and will not receive compensation. Any proceeds above direct event expenses would go to Project Glitch. That structure is stated directly in the grant request.
On costs and tickets, I addressed that in a previous post in this thread, so I won’t repeat all of those details here. The short version is that ticket sales are not intended to be the core funding model.
On Project Glitch: they are a team of journalists focused on improving public discourse around blockchain networks and related technologies. Their stated approach is to break down technical concepts and urgent technological questions that deserve broader public understanding. They also have a clear public ethics statement: they describe themselves as journalists, say they seek to work from facts and verifiable evidence, state that they are not currently venture-backed, and state that sponsors do not control their editorial product or event curation. That last point matters here: their role is not to produce sponsor copy; it is to help curate serious programming. (Project Glitch)
Their track record in this space is substantial. Project Glitch produced the first DC Privacy Summit and has continued to build programming around the intersection of privacy, cryptography, policy, and law. Their public description of the first Summit says it brought together leading technologists and policymakers and explored how zero-knowledge-based cryptographic systems are evolving and how privacy and compliance can coexist. (Project Glitch) The 2025 DC Privacy Summit was a focused day at USC Capital Campus with regulators, builders, cryptographers, and privacy professionals exploring cryptography and responsible policy, including topics like illicit-finance risk, compliance, digital identity, zero-knowledge proofs, and privacy-preserving technologies. (DC Privacy Summit)
The content was not superficial. The 2025 agenda included sessions such as “You Underestimate Modern Cryptography,” Matthew Green’s “The Coming Privacy Forest Fire—and How to Fight It,” a fireside chat with SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce, “How to Fight the Lazarus Group,” “What ZK Can—and Can’t—Do for You,” “How to Avoid a Dystopian Digital ID System,” and “The Year Is 2030: What Does On-Chain Privacy and Compliance Look Like?” Mike Orcutt and Lucy Harley-McKeown of Project Glitch moderated multiple sessions. (DC Privacy Summit) The Summit videos are publicly archived, so people can evaluate the seriousness of the programming directly. (DC Privacy Summit)
Project Glitch’s own writing also shows the approach they bring to these issues. In announcing the second annual DC Privacy Summit, they framed the core problem as the unresolved tension between civil liberties, crypto privacy software, law enforcement, illicit-finance risk, and the chilling effect on developers building at the frontier of cryptographic privacy. They also explicitly asked whether technologies like zero-knowledge proofs could help manage risk without sacrificing user privacy. (Project Glitch) In their post-event writeup, they argued that crypto privacy discussions need more precision, not slogans, and pointed to Zcash, Monero, Tornado Cash, Samourai Wallet, Railgun, and related projects as part of a broader technical and policy landscape that deserves serious treatment. (Project Glitch)
That is the kind of credibility and editorial seriousness Project Glitch brings to this proposal.
On PGP*: the record is also public. PGP* for Crypto convenes policymakers, privacy technologists, and advocates in Washington, DC through recurring breakfast briefings focused on crypto policy, privacy, and responsible innovation. Its mission statement says the series brings together policy experts to work through digital-asset regulation and innovation, with emphasis on privacy-preserving technologies and how they challenge AML/KYC frameworks when those frameworks are applied without nuance. (pgpforcrypto.org)
The PGP* content is not just networking. The series includes policy roundtables, privacy-tech deep dives, and policy-roadmap discussions. Recent and featured PGP* topics include privacy and security, crypto token taxonomy, Coin Center policy updates, decentralization and AI, Tornado Cash and Samourai Wallet updates, crypto security and SEAL, and confidential stablecoins. (pgpforcrypto.org) The PGP* origin also matters: the name intentionally references Pretty Good Privacy, a technology with deep cypherpunk significance, and the PGP* site explains that PGP was widely used among cypherpunks for privacy protection and influenced the development of cryptocurrencies. (pgpforcrypto.org)
Before the current event series, the PGP* podcast also covered the intersection of blockchain technology, public policy, and global regulatory topics. ECC’s announcement of the podcast described it as an exploration of blockchain, policy, regulation, and how current and proposed policy approaches affect the blockchain ecosystem. (Z.Cash) The podcast later included an episode with the Project Glitch founding editors about crypto journalism, privacy, the DC Privacy Summit, and the importance of privacy in the future of the internet. (Amazon Music Unlimited)
The prior ZCG-supported PGP* application also described the strategy clearly. PGP* was launched in 2022 to raise awareness of Zcash and other privacy-enhancing protocols within Washington, DC’s policy community. It used a monthly breakfast format with lightning talks, roundtables, and expert panels to translate technical developments into policy-ready discussion. That same application described the core theme as showing how privacy-preserving technologies can satisfy financial-integrity goals without sacrificing individual autonomy, and it noted that meetings were livestreamed and archived online. (Zcash Community Forum) ZCG approved that prior proposal and requested monthly updates to keep the community informed. (Zcash Community Forum)
So when I talk about CPD, I am not asking the community to trust a vague promise. I am asking the community to evaluate a body of work: PGP* meetings, the PGP* podcast, the DC Privacy Summit, publicly archived videos, Project Glitch’s written analysis, and multiple years of convening technical and policy people around privacy-preserving technologies.
On “cypherpunk”: I understand the skepticism. A DC policy dinner with a cypherpunk theme is intentionally ironic. That is part of the hook. The point is not to pretend that a dinner near the White House is the same thing as writing code, running infrastructure, or living cypherpunk values directly. The point is to bring those values into an environment that often defaults to surveillance, institutional control, deference to incumbents, and closed-door policy assumptions.
To me, cypherpunk values include privacy, autonomy, user control, censorship resistance, skepticism of mandatory surveillance, and the use of applied cryptography to protect ordinary people. Bringing those values into DC does not mean watering them down. It means forcing a policy audience to confront them directly.
That is why I disagree with the framing that this is about “spend money to access legal privileges.” The goal is not to buy special treatment, seek a carveout, or obtain legal privileges for a company. The goal is to educate policymakers and policy influencers about why financial privacy matters, why privacy-preserving cryptography is a public good, and why Zcash deserves to be understood as one of the most serious implementations of those values.
If someone uses “lobbying” broadly to mean any policy education or advocacy in Washington, then I understand why they might use that shorthand. But that is not the same as saying this is Zodl lobbying, corporate-funded private-company lobbying, or an effort to purchase legal outcomes. That is not what this proposal is.
The CPD concept is an evolution in approach. PGP* has mostly used a soft-advocacy model: build trust, convene serious people, and consistently introduce privacy-preserving technology and Zcash into the conversation. That was especially important during a period when crypto policy was often enforcement-first and privacy tools were under intense legal and reputational pressure. Project Glitch has written directly about that policy impasse, including the tension between crypto/civil-liberties advocates and government treatment of decentralized privacy software. (Project Glitch)
CPD is more direct. It is meant to be Zcash-forward. Supporting sponsors would be limited to Zcash ecosystem entities. Any paid tickets would be ZEC-only. The program would be broadly cypherpunk-themed but clearly linked to Zcash, financial privacy, and privacy-preserving cryptography. That is the point of the proposal.
On format: the final program is still TBD, but this is intended to be a dinner conversation, not a one-way lecture. The concept includes opening remarks, ZCG anchor sponsor recognition, Zcash-linked cypherpunk policy framing, curated discussion, and time for guests to speak with one another. I expect Project Glitch to help shape the program so that it is thoughtful, serious, and not simply sponsor messaging.
I understand that some people may still disagree with using ZCG funds for DC policy engagement. That is a fair debate. My request is that the debate be based on what the proposal actually is: a Zcash-forward policy education and advocacy event built on a documented track record of PGP* and Project Glitch privacy-policy programming, not a Zodl grant, not compensation for PGP, and not an effort to purchase special legal privileges.