Here’s the text of the grant proposal from Blockworks:
Application Owners (@octocat, @octocat1)
Organization Name
Blockworks
How did you learn about Zcash Community Grants
Referred by Jason McGee
Requested Grant Amount (USD)
60,000
Category
Media
Project Lead
Name: Alex Hanbury Role: Blockworks Partnerships Background: ZCash partner rep at Blockworks Responsibilities: Understand what narratives different projects are working on sharing with certain audiences and helping get them in front of the relevant folks within the Blockworks ecosystem.
Additional Team Members
N/A
Project Summary
- Empire Podcast Title Sponsorship – 13 consecutive episodes starting 10/17, featuring Zcash as the Premier Title Sponsor. Last Title Sponsorship left for the year on Empire.
- Ad Reads – One pre‑roll and one mid‑roll host‑read spot per sponsored episode.
- Empire Newsletter Sponsorship – Zcash as headline sponsor of the Empire newsletter for 3 weeks concurrent with the podcast run.
- Creative & Coordination – Blockworks creative team to script ad reads; Foundation approval prior to recording.
- Performance Reporting – Download impressions and CTR shared after campaign completion
Project Description
The Empire podcast receives ~100k monthly listeners, and roughly ~43% of them have over $100k allocated to crypto.
Proposed Problem
Brand awareness and helping the audience see Zcash as an intriguing project to look more closely at.
Proposed Solution
See above.
Solution Format
13 episodes of Title Sponsorship, starting on 10/17. 2 episodes air per week.
Dependencies
Collaboration from Zcash team for the content of the ad read.
Technical Approach
n/a
Upstream Merge Opportunities
n/a
Hardware/Software Costs (USD)
n/a
Hardware/Software Justification
n/a
Service Costs (USD)
$60000
Service Costs Justification
Cost of the sponsorship is $60,000 for 13 episodes of title sponsorship.
Compensation Costs (USD)
n/a
Compensation Costs Justification
n/a
Total Budget (USD)
$60,000
Previous Funding
No
Previous Funding Details
n/a
Other Funding Sources
No
Other Funding Sources Details
No response
Implementation Risks
n/a
Potential Side Effects
n/a
Success Metrics
Total viewership being exposed to the Zcash brand via ad reads of 13 episode period.
Startup Funding (USD)
$60,000
Startup Funding Justification
$60,000 due net 14 after signing contract.
Milestone Details
N/A
Supporting Documents
- File Name 1: Brief description of the file contents - File Name 2: Brief description of the file contents
Hi @countofmontecrypto25 - Welcome to the forum, and thank you for submitting your grant proposal! We will review it in the upcoming weeks and reach out if we have any questions.
In the meantime, if you have any questions for us, you can post them to this thread or DM us at @ZcashGrants.
Zcash Community - We want to hear your feedback on this grant! You can post your comments to this thread or DM us at @ZcashGrants if you’d like to provide feedback in private.
Thanks!
Hey @countofmontecrypto25 thanks for applying!
I always felt we needed sponsorship campaigns for Zcash but that’s completely outside my area of expertise. The following questions may not make any sense because of that so I apologize if that’s the case.
Would you care to share previous success cases and metrics you took in order to measure and adjust the sponsorship towards that goal?
Besides the promotional material Zcash folks should provide for the episode sponsorship, are there other elements that helped metrics to do better? (example: feature a particular event, promote a wallet, you_name_it, etc.)
what are the complementary metrics that would be needed to measure impact of this brand exposure? I think that many of the Zcash sites don’t have much logging or tracing to measure traffic and activity.
I am a long time Zcash holder and I’d like to express my disproval of this grant for the following reasons:
High Cost Relative to Reach:
The $60,000 cost for 13 episodes of title sponsorship, ad reads, and newsletter mentions is excessive given the podcast’s reported ~100k monthly listeners. Assuming two episodes per week, each episode may reach approximately 50k listeners (if evenly distributed), equating to roughly $4,615 per episode. This cost is disproportionate to the potential brand exposure, especially considering podcast audiences often skip ads or multitask, reducing engagement. For comparison, a TikTok ad campaign with $60,000 could generate millions of views due to the platform’s high engagement and algorithmic reach (e.g., TikTok campaigns typically cost $0.02-$0.04 per view, potentially yielding 1.5-3 million views).
Low Listener Reach:
The ~100,000 monthly listener metric is modest for a podcast sponsorship, especially in the crypto space where competition is fierce. Major crypto podcasts like The Pomp Podcast or Unchained often boast larger, more engaged audiences. A collective audience of 100k across a month (potentially split across multiple episodes) does not justify the high cost, as it lacks the scale needed for significant brand awareness.
Dubious Audience Metrics:
The claim that ~43% of listeners have over $100,000 invested in crypto is unverifiable and lacks context. There is no provided methodology for how this figure was derived (e.g., survey data, listener demographics). Additionally, even if true, there is no clear mechanism to track downstream benefits to Zcash, such as increased wallet activations or trading volume. Without concrete attribution, the investment’s impact on Zcash’s ecosystem is speculative.
Branding Inaccuracy:
The use of “ZCash” (improper capitalization) in the proposal indicates a lack of attention to Zcash’s brand guidelines, which consistently use “Zcash.” This error suggests insufficient research or care, undermining confidence in Blockworks’ understanding of the project’s identity and values.
Podcast Market Saturation:
The podcast space, particularly in crypto, is oversaturated, with hundreds of shows competing for attention. Listener fatigue is a real issue, as audiences are bombarded with content. Without a unique distribution strategy (e.g., leveraging short-form video clips on TikTok, YouTube Shorts, or X Reels), the sponsorship risks being lost in the noise. The proposal lacks details on how the podcast will be promoted to maximize Zcash’s exposure.
No Collaboration Details:
The proposal mentions collaboration with the Zcash team for ad read content but provides no specifics on how this will be executed. Without a clear plan for aligning the messaging with Zcash’s privacy-focused narrative, the sponsorship risks being generic and ineffective.
Here are a couple of ideas that I would deem more effective for the same price of this grant:
Digital Billboard in High-Traffic Areas:
A digital billboard in Times Square, NYC, or Sunset Boulevard, LA, costs approximately $10,000-$20,000 for a 2-week campaign, reaching millions of impressions daily (e.g., Times Square billboards average 1.5 million impressions per week). For $60,000, Zcash could secure a 6-8 week campaign, far surpassing the podcast’s reach. A visually striking ad emphasizing Zcash’s privacy features could generate significant buzz, especially if paired with a QR code linking to Zcash’s website.
TikTok/YouTube Shorts Campaign:
A $60,000 budget could fund a TikTok influencer campaign with 3-5 mid-tier crypto influencers (50,000-500,000 followers each), creating short, engaging videos about Zcash’s privacy benefits. With TikTok’s CPM (cost per thousand impressions) averaging $10-$20, this could yield 3-6 million impressions, plus organic shares. YouTube Shorts campaigns are similarly cost-effective, with high engagement rates among crypto enthusiasts.
We’ve seen this type of grant before with Zcash Media and I would hope that we learned from past mistakes.
$60,000 is an extremely high number. The cost of these sponsorships are clearly inflated by the VC-driven, token industrial complex, which Zcash doesn’t particularly benefit from.
I also don’t see how this aligns with Zcash’s brand. The last few episodes have been covering shitcoins, crypto treasury companies, Pump.fun’s ICO, and ethereum l2 <> bank partnerships.
This isn’t a wise use of funds and could be better allocated to different marketing initiatives.
Also, “Zcash” isn’t tangible. It’d be much better to have “Zashi” be the sponsor so there’s a call to action for users to actually try the app.
Fwiw, I’m the editor-in-chief at a media company so have strong opinions. I think this is a waste.
Hi everyone, I’m writing down some more thoughts that might be helpful to the grants committee as they make their decision.
First, the application
$60,000 is no small ask. It’s the equivalent of a small enterprise sales contract for small startups. I equate Zcash’s current financial situation to that of a smaller startup (e.g. pre series C). In the application, there was no real mention of benefits for the sponsorship. What are the exposure numbers across platforms, potential conversion rates, has the audience expressed an interest in privacy? All the community received was “you get exposure on our really big show”.
Personally, I wasn’t impressed with the community engagement. A few forum messages would’ve done here.
Second, the show
Empire seems to be a good pod. I don’t listen to it, but I’ve enjoyed Blockworks’ brand and have personally worked with a few of their team members (albeit in small scenarios). They’re good people and I think they’re a fantastic crypto media company. But, I don’t think this particular show is a good fit for an uncensorable private internet money with historically poor price performance and a disgusting price chart.
Why not take the $60,000 and distribute it across podcasts where we might have higher conversions? For example, Vlad’s the bitcoin takeover podcast reaches a number of people in digital cash adjacent communities and does decent numbers. Mert’s new podcast seems like it’s going to be a good one, and he is a massive CT persona and fan of Zcash. The Rage tech is a growing media company, that already accepts Zcash donations, and has the best coverage on topics adjacent to Zcash (i.e. the Tornado Cash trial).
I just feel like the money could better spent on media companies that 1) consistently have given a shit about privacy (especially if they don’t ECC angel bags) and 2) have an audience that converts directly into Zashi downloads.
And, I wonder if 60,000 can be used across multiple sponsorships that have potentially higher conversion rates, thus driving a better ROI.
Third, the positioning
Crypto infra is dead. People do not give a shit about what’s behind the tech, they care about what the tech can do for them. Zcash is in a perfect position to solve so many of crypto’s privacy issues with its new user experience and many integrations. It’s fantastic, and you know what, I feel like I eat a little crow every time I congratulate the community because I doubted it would happen.
Any sponsorship of Zcash should focus on getting more users to download a zcash wallet, swap tokens from Near, and start spending via in-app integrations or peer-to-peer. I don’t know if a sponsorship on a fintech-focused podcast is going to drive conversion into users doing this.
To close
Sorry for the long message. I just feel pretty strongly about this and I think it would be a misuse of funds. I believe these funds should go to more historically aligned media outlets whose user bases can drive Zashi (or other app) downloads.
Thanks,
J
Edit: in the first version, I said they did not share any details. The did share that the podcast has a decent listener base, but understanding this distribution across platforms is key as the numbers could be inflated. I.e. I doubt X views are genuine listeners.
If this could be tracked with a coupon code, that would be neat. e.g. 5% off taker fees…
@countofmontecrypto25, thank you for your submission. After careful consideration from @ZcashGrants and allowing sufficient time for community feedback on the forum, the committee has decided to reject this proposal.
The committee appreciates your grant submission efforts and encourages you to continue as an active member of the Zcash community going forward!