Educating Communities by Educating Their Leaders

[CryptoEpoch]

Hello everyone,

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been spending time learning more about Zcash, reading forum discussions, reviewing grant proposals, and trying to understand the ecosystem from different perspectives.

One observation keeps coming back to me.

In my opinion, a large portion of the crypto industry knows ZEC as an asset.

Far fewer people truly know Zcash.

And even fewer understand the importance of financial privacy, shielded transactions, and the mission behind the project.

Within this forum and among long-time community members, these concepts are well understood. The same is often true for dedicated Zcash supporters on X, Telegram, Discord, and other community platforms.

However, outside those circles, I believe most people still see ZEC primarily as a cryptocurrency rather than understanding what makes Zcash unique.

This led me to think about a different approach to education.

Instead of trying to educate every individual user directly, what if we focused on educating the people who already educate communities?

Across crypto there are community leaders, content creators, educators, moderators, ambassadors, and ecosystem contributors who collectively reach hundreds of thousands — and often millions — of people through their communities, social platforms, videos, spaces, events, and educational channels.

The idea would be to create a structured educational program specifically for community leaders.

Participants would learn about:

• The history and mission of Zcash
• Financial privacy and why it matters
• Shielded transactions
• Wallet onboarding and usage
• Real-world privacy use cases
• Ecosystem tools and resources

The goal would not be marketing.

The goal would be understanding.

After completing the educational program, participants would be encouraged to share what they learned with their own communities through educational threads, articles, videos, discussions, spaces, workshops, and other learning-focused content.

In other words:

Rather than trying to educate every user directly, we educate community leaders who can then educate their own communities.

The objective is not to promote ZEC as an asset.

The objective is to help more people understand Zcash, financial privacy, and why privacy matters in an increasingly digital world.

I’m curious what the community thinks.

Would an education model like this create meaningful long-term value for the ecosystem?

What would you improve, change, or challenge about this idea?

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

-– Crypto Epoch

[dismad]

@CryptoEpoch

we educate community leaders

Lets bring this down to earth, which leaders and why would they care? ( Im more curious because this isnt an easy problem )

[CryptoEpoch]

That’s a great question.

To be completely transparent, my expectation wouldn’t be that people participate purely out of curiosity.

The program would likely need incentives, but not in the traditional “make a post and get paid” model that exists across much of crypto.

My vision is closer to a structured educational cohort.

Participants would learn about Zcash, financial privacy, shielded transactions, wallets, and the broader mission behind the project.

After completing educational modules, they would be expected to transfer that knowledge to their own communities through educational threads, articles, videos, discussions, spaces, workshops, or similar educational content.

In other words, they wouldn’t be rewarded for promotion.

They would be rewarded for participating in the educational program and helping educate their communities.

The goal isn’t to create advertisers.

The goal is to create informed community educators.

As someone who has worked with community leaders and content creators for years, I know the challenge isn’t finding people with audiences.

The challenge is finding people who are genuinely willing to learn first and teach second.

That’s the part I find most interesting.

[dismad]

You need folks at the ground, and their networks to have buy in. This is a very hard problem because it involves trust, everyone’s favorite word.

[zooko]

I like the way you are thinking!

My current motivation is to get the most outsiders to come to trust Zcash (for true, good reasons) over the next ten years (by 2036).

By “outsiders” I mean people who don’t know any of us personally, who don’t know anything about cryptography or blockchain or computer science, who don’t speak English, and who distrust all of our institutions (such as Zcash Foundation, the “Core Devs”, Github, the United States Government, etc.).

But the percentage of those outsiders who are going to learn how Zcash works is small. For a large number of outsiders to come to trust Zcash, they’re going to have to rely on simplified understandings of the basics, and they’re going to have to rely on other people or institutions that they do trust, who themselves trust Zcash for true and good reasons.

[CryptoEpoch]

That’s a very fair point.

One thing I probably didn’t explain clearly is that I’ve spent years working with community leaders, creators, ambassadors, and ecosystem builders across different crypto communities.

Because of that, I already have relationships with many people who manage and educate communities today.

Of course, bringing people together physically would be nearly impossible. These community leaders are spread across different countries, languages, and time zones around the world.

My thinking was more along the lines of creating a dedicated online learning environment exclusively for community leaders.

A place where they could learn about Zcash, financial privacy, shielded transactions, and the broader mission of the project through structured educational materials and discussions.

The challenge isn’t teaching people.

The challenge is building trust and finding the right participants, which is exactly why I found your comment valuable.

I think trust is ultimately the foundation of whether a model like this succeeds or fails.

[dismad]

@zooko

By “outsiders” I mean people who don’t know any of us personally, who don’t know anything about cryptography or blockchain or computer science, who don’t speak English, and who distrust all of our institutions (such as Zcash Foundation, the “Core Devs”, Github, the United States Government, etc.).

Good example of trust with networks ( supercross which I follow)

I back flipped at the White House

[CryptoEpoch]

Thank you, Zooko.

I think that’s a very important distinction.

Most people will never become experts in cryptography, privacy technology, or blockchain systems.

In reality, many people trust information because it comes from people, communities, and institutions they already trust.

The more I think about it, the more I believe trust may be even more important than education itself.

Perhaps the real challenge isn’t simply teaching people about Zcash.

Perhaps it’s helping trusted community leaders understand Zcash well enough that they can introduce it to the people who already trust them.

I appreciate your perspective

[CryptoEpoch]

Hello everyone,

A few weeks ago, I shared this idea here to gather early feedback from the community. The discussions in this thread helped me refine the concept, rethink several parts of the program, and better understand where it could provide value to the Zcash ecosystem.

Based on that feedback, I’ve now submitted a full Zcash Community Grants proposal:

GitHub Proposal:

Grant Application - Educating Communities by Educating Their Leaders

I also opened a dedicated forum thread for the proposal, where I’m collecting community feedback and answering questions:

Grant Application – Educating Communities by Educating Their Leaders (ZCLN)

Hello everyone, My name is Hayri, though many people in the Web3 space know me as Crypto Epoch. X: Crypto Epoch (@crypto_epoch) / X For the past four years, I’ve been working closely with Community Leaders, KOLs, ambassadors, creators, and ecosystem builders across multiple blockchain ecosystems. During this time, I’ve managed international KOL campaigns, coordinated creator communities, and built long-term relationships with Community Leaders from different countries. Today, I actively work…

Thank you to everyone who shared ideas and challenged the original concept. Your feedback genuinely helped shape the proposal into something much stronger. I’m looking forward to hearing more thoughts as the discussion continues.