I am submitting a grant application to ZCG on behalf of Castle Labs for research media content on Zcash.
Project Summary
Castle Labs is a research and advisory firm. We have been pushing for the last 3 years and are slowly establishing ourselves as a reputable research and advisory company. We have worked with others, such as Mantle and Arbitrum, on broader campaigns.
Our focus is on insightful long-form content which provides both education and actionable insights for users and builders.
The research landscape is saturated: too much content, not enough perspective. Our response is human-centric research backed by direct experience, with claims that can be traced, tested, and held to the standard that serious allocators demand.
Castle pairs deep research with built-in distribution to ensure insights move beyond internal documents and reach the people shaping outcomes. Through our owned media channels, we publish long-form research, feature articles, and educational content for builders, operators, investors, and governance participants.
Distribution is treated as an extension of strategy, not a broadcast channel, ensuring that research and campaigns land with the right audiences at the right moment and with lasting credibility.
We bring first-hand, professional and onchain experience across early-stage and established teams. Our institutional-grade research and services are used by industry players and recognised through our roles as a Research Member of Arbitrum’s Research & Development Collective (ARDC) and as Investor Relations Advisor to Arbitrum Gaming Ventures (a 200M ARB fund). We are trusted by industry leaders such as Mantle, Starknet, Ink, Arbitrum, EigenCloud, Berachain, Almanak, GMX, Azuro, Resolv, and Curvance.
Proposed Problem
Even when privacy tools exist and are improving, adoption remains limited by education and UX barriers rather than technical capability.
Why This Matters Now:
Regulatory pressure increasing: UK exchanges halted ZEC trading over FCA privacy coin guidance, showing the compliance vs. privacy tension.
Tooling is finally maturing: Developments like the Zashi wallet with unified addresses and NEAR Intents integration removed major UX barriers that historically limited adoption.
Privacy set effects: As Coin Metrics notes, “privacy is only as strong as the overall privacy set” low adoption weakens privacy for everyone.
Real-world use cases emerging: Payroll, commerce, cross-border transfers where financial confidentiality matters.
Institutional involvement demands a thin line between transparency and privacy, as they require their strategies and transactions to be obfuscated from public eyes.
While ZEC has strong mindshare in the privacy space, most users have very little understanding of the technology or recent developments in the protocol or ecosystem.
Proposed Solution
The industry needs research that bridges the gap between theoretical privacy and practical onchain privacy implementation.
We propose initiating a research-based collaboration with an initial pilot: a short-term campaign comprising two 1500-2000-word articles and a 3000-4000-word flagship report.
Article 1: Privacy from Theory to Practice (1500-2000 words)
There are many discussions about privacy; however, most are very abstract.
This results in a gap in the practical implementation of this concept onchain.
As the systems have grown, we are all victims of extreme surveillance around us, whether it is from the government or the apps we use daily that track every move we make, build our virtual persona, and always try to sell us something and manipulate us.
We expect this to continue.
Blockchains came as a solution, but only half-baked, achieving pseudonymity.
Ethereum’s current roadmap focuses on this point, aiming to integrate more full-stack privacy so that data cannot be leaked at any stage of the interaction, since a user could leak their data in many ways.
The whole industry is trying to find a solution to the same problem: how best to tackle de-anonymisation.
The aim of this article is to bridge the gap between privacy as an abstract conception and its practical onchain implementations and the state of the art, with a focus on Zcash and its privacy features.
Article 2: The Revival of the Cypherpunk Vision (1500-2000 words)
This article will be more context-setting and narrative in nature.
We will dive into the initial promises of cryptocurrency and the cypherpunk vision.
With the increasing institutional involvement, it seems we have abandoned the initial vision of permissionless and private systems. We also dive into the hypothesis of Zcash as a Bitcoin hedge: BTC was never private; it only enables pseudonymity, which isn’t enough in most contexts.
Instead, Zcash enables privacy and runs on the same principles as BTC. More and more institutions have addressed it as a Bitcoin hedge. Bitcoin isn’t progressing well toward post-quantum cryptography, while Zcash is on track.
Report 1: A Deep Dive into Zcash (3000-4000 words)
This report will dive deep into Zcash adoption through a hybrid research approach:
Quantitative analysis on shielded vs not shielded transaction adoption, growth drivers, and integrations (e.g. near intent volumes)
Qualitative analysis of case studies around privacy, spotlighting Zcash ecosystem projects
Comparative analysis with other privacy implementations
This report will also focus on the maturity of the Zcash ecosystem and its overall upgraded UX for smooth, private transactions.
All articles and reports will be published on our X (x.com/castle_labs) as well as on our blog (research.castlelabs.io). We also have our own internal distribution channels to ensure the research reaches a wide audience of builders and allocators who matter.
Dependencies
There are no dependencies; we can carry out this work independently.
Technical Approach
In this case, the technical approach is restricted to the research methodology, etc., as our project focuses on Education and content.
Our pieces will follow a hybrid research framework combining onchain data around Zcash, like the share of shielded transactions in the network, how much of the Zcash is shielded, near-intent volume, and other relevant data metrics, with a technical literature review around Zcash’s post-quantum alignment, how it works technically, helping us to compare with its competitors or products in a similar category, including Monero, Tornado Cash, Aztec, etc.
Upstream Merge Opportunities
Our project does not fork or modify any existing Zcash software.
Hardware/Software Costs (USD)
0
Hardware/Software Justification
Our team will not require any additional hardware or software to carry out this analysis. If any extra costs are needed on the data side, we expect them to be negligible and will cover them ourselves.
Service Costs (USD)
0
Service Costs Justification
Our team can carry out this project independently, without the need for external service providers.
Compensation Costs (USD)
$17,040
Compensation Costs Justification
The costs of compensation are justified as follows:
1. Research: an estimated 40 hours for 2 resources, at a $110.00 hourly rate - $8,800.00 2. Data Analysis & Visualisation: an estimated 30 hours for 1 resource, at a $110.00 hourly rate - $3,300.00 3. Drafting and Editing: an estimated 20 hours for 2 resources, at a $110.00 hourly rate - $4,400.00 4. Distribution on Social Media: an estimated 9 hours for 1 resource, at a $60.00 hourly rate - $540.00
Total: $17,040.00
Total Budget (USD)
$17,040
Previous Funding
No
Previous Funding Details
n/a
Other Funding Sources
Yes
Other Funding Sources Details
Castle Labs has previously received public good funding through grants, including the Optimism RFG grant and the Arbitrum D.A.O. grant for previous research campaigns.
Implementation Risks
We have already verified the feasibility of this research project on the data side; therefore, we believe there are no realistic implementation risks that would hinder its delivery. The entire team will be involved in this project to ensure its successful delivery.
Potential Side Effects
As an educational piece on the adoption of shielded pools and Zcash, it will most likely have no negative impact on the ecosystem or beyond; our intention is the opposite.
Success Metrics
The main purpose of this grant application is an educational campaign to raise awareness of the growth of shielded transactions and to demystify the concept of onchain privacy through data-driven research.
The article will be distributed through our X channel and blog, with over 5000 subscribers and a consistent open rate between 25-30%. For this reason, we will rely on traditional engagement KPIs, such as impressions and open rate, for our blog.
We also have an internal distribution in place to ensure the piece travels far and wide to allocators and builders.
We do not require any startup funding, can start immediately, and rely on funding only once milestones are completed.
Milestone Details
- Milestone: 1
Amount (USD): 5000
Expected Completion Date: 1 month after grant acceptance
User Stories:
- "As a cryptocurrency user i want to know what is practically possible nowadays to preserve my privacy onchain using zcash, before i have the need to”
Deliverables:
Delivery of Article 1
Acceptance Criteria: Article 1 live on our X and Blog, and Zcash governance forum on the grant application thread.
- Milestone: 2
Amount (USD): 5000
Expected Completion Date: 2 months after grant acceptance
User Stories:
- "As a crypto user i came here because of the promise of privacy and a permissionless system and i would like to know more on how we can return to this and how zcash preserve the original crypherpunk ethos"
Deliverables:
Delivery of Article 2
Acceptance Criteria: Article 2 live on our X and Blog, and Zcash governance forum on the grant application thread.
- Milestone: 3
Amount (USD): 5000
Expected Completion Date: 3 months after grant acceptence
User Stories:
- "As a crypto user i am not super familiar with zcash and i would like a comprehensive resource that puts me up to date”
Deliverables:
Delivery of Flagship Zcash Report
Acceptance Criteria: Report live on our X and Blog, and Zcash governance forum on the grant application thread.
- Milestone: 4
Amount (USD): 2040
Expected Completion Date: 2 weeks after the delivery of the Flagship Zcash Report
User Stories:
- "As a zcash user i want clarity on the way our governance spend money so i want projects receiving grants to be transparent with their spending and see the impact of this money”
Deliverables:
Post-mortem transparency report: impressions and all KPIs data related to the report delivered
Acceptance Criteria: Transparency report published on the Zcash governance forum
Supporting Documents
castlelabs.io includes examples of our previous research and more case studies.
x.com/castle_labs/articles includes more examples of our previous work.
Thank you for submitting your proposal. After careful consideration by the ZCG and a period for community comments on the forum, the committee has decided not to advance this proposal.
We genuinely appreciate the work and dedication you put into your application and hope you’ll continue to participate and contribute to the Zcash community.