Rvess Pay is a live crypto to mobile money pilot focused on East Africa. This grant will integrate shielded ZEC deposits and mobile money payouts for Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania.
The project will also release reusable open-source components for:
Detecting and reconciling shielded ZEC payments
Generating Unified Addresses and ZIP 321 payment requests
Connecting Zcash deposits to a TypeScript payment backend
Preventing duplicate deposit credits and payouts
Operating the integration with documented privacy and security controls
Grant Details
Requested amount: $32,000
Duration: 20 weeks
Category: Integration
The work is divided into four milestones covering Zcash infrastructure, shielded payment detection, wallet-compatible payment requests, mobile money payout integration, testing, documentation, and mainnet launch preparation.
I welcome questions and feedback on the technical approach, milestones, budget, and potential value to the Zcash ecosystem.
This is an interesting direction, especially because mobile money can make the ZEC use case more tangible for people who do not currently use crypto wallets.
For the pilot, i´m curious of how do you plan to measure successful onboarding beyond transaction volume, for example, repeat usage, merchant retention, or users who complete a first shielded payment?
It would also be useful to know what user education and support flow will be available for first-time Zcash users, since the experience around wallet setup, privacy choices, and troubleshooting can be as important as the payment integration itself.
Thanks, these are important points.
For the pilot, we plan to measure first shielded-payment completion, time to first successful transaction, repeat usage after 30 and 60 days, payout completion, support needs, and where users leave the onboarding flow.
If merchants participate, we will also track active merchant retention. Metrics will use internal order identifiers and aggregate reporting, without exposing shielded transaction details or unnecessary wallet information.
First-time users will receive guided wallet setup, Unified Address and ZIP 321 payment instructions, clear privacy explanations, exact-amount and confirmation guidance, troubleshooting steps, and a support escalation path.
The goal is to measure whether users understand and confidently repeat the complete shielded ZEC to mobile-money journey, not only whether transaction volume increases.
Thanks for the detailed clarification. The combination of first successful shielded payment, time to completion, repeat usage, support needs, and onboarding drop-off should provide a much more useful picture than transaction volume alone.
I also appreciate the privacy-preserving approach to reporting through aggregate metrics rather than unnecessary wallet or transaction data. The guided setup, clear payment instructions, and support escalation path sound especially important for helping first-time users complete the journey with confidence.
I spent some time looking into Relworx and, as far as I was able to verify, it appears to be a real operating payments company in Uganda. I found it in official registries, looked through its mobile money API, and found its Vaulit app.
From what I saw in your earlier application to the Cardano community grants program, I can also see that you are quite familiar with the Cardano ecosystem.
I mainly have two questions left.
The first is about the existing Cardano pilot. In the application, you say that it is already processing real transactions through Relworx with the provider’s approval. So far, I haven’t been able to find a public Rvess Pay product or any data showing the activity of this pilot. Could you share how many real transactions have already gone through this flow and roughly what volume they represent? And would it be possible to show at least one anonymized example of the full path: Cardano transaction → Rvess → Relworx → mobile money payout, just for demonstrate it to ZCG?
My second question is about the regulatory side. As far as I understand, Relworx itself is a regulated payment operator, but it does not convert crypto into fiat. I also found that Uganda has separate regulatory requirements for companies dealing with virtual assets. So I’d like to better understand what “provider approval” from Relworx means in your case, and who legally performs the actual ADA-to-fiat conversion and replenishes fiat liquidity.
Overall, the technical model itself seems quite clear to me. I’m mainly trying to understand which parts are already working today and which parts still need to be built as part of this grant.
Thank you for submitting your proposal. Following a thorough review by the ZCG and a period for community feedback on the forum, the committee has decided not to move forward with this proposal.
We sincerely appreciate the time and effort you invested in your application and encourage you to stay involved and continue contributing to the Zcash community. Further details available in the meeting minutes.
