Organization Name
ShieldHash
Requested Grant Amount (USD)
2,000
Category
Infrastructure
Project Lead
Name: Ben Harvey
Role: Founder
Background: I am currently working as a digital assets research analyst at Keyrock. Prior to that I was an investment analyst at a liquid token hedge fund, and prior to that an analyst on Wellington Management's Fixed Income desk. My background is financial, but I have sufficient technical knowledge. I have been fascinated with digital assets and blockchain technologies since I started blogging about them in my university dorm room. I've become fascinated with Zcash and it's representation of what I deem to be the purest sound money.
Responsibilities: Lead delivery of the Phase-1 MVP, in procuring and running a Zcash testnet miner, implementing the payout architecture, write the code, and operate secure infrastructure. Publish bi-weekly progress updates and grant reports, engage community pools to promote decentralisation, track KPIs, and prepare the Phase-2 plan.
Additional Team Members
None.
Project Summary
ShieldHash lets users buy digital miners, which represent a share of Zcash hashrate from miners run by ShieldHash. The miners are sold as Solana NFTs, priced per kH/s) and recieve daily shielded ZEC payouts in line with their miners rewards.
Project Description
ShieldHas is a mining-as-a-service platform that sells ‘digital miners’ as Solana NFTs, each priced by kH/s and mapped to a real share of Zcash hashrate operated by ShieldHash. Buyers receive daily shielded ZEC payouts to a non-custodial Zcash unified address. The address is created client-side in our dApp and privately bound to the NFT via an onchain commitment.
The project’s core goal is to make Zcash mining accessible to anyone, no hardware, no cheap-power contract, and no technical set-up required. We also aim to strengthen network health by directing hashrate towards smaller, community aligned pools. Operationally, we snapshot NFT ownership every day at 12:00 UTC, calculate each tokens pro-rata share based on kH/s and site uptime, and execute a single shielded batch payout to all registered addresses for the previous 24h. Transparency is a big deal here, so we publish tx IDs and proofs while retaining privacy.
Phase 1, which this grant is for, delivers a working mini-MVP. This consists of a Zcash test miner in our control, paired with the Solana NFT mint with kH/s metadata, the address-binding flow, and automated daily shielded distributions, which would be simulated on testnet to prove end to end function. Once milestones are hit, we’d look to then move on to grants/fundraising to professionalise the operation.
For me, success for ShieldHash would be growing hashrate under management, achieving seamless user onboarding, reliable daily payouts, and a visible shift of capacity toward underrepresented Zcash pools.
Proposed Problem
Most people who want to mine Zcash can’t, this is because hardware is expensive, electricity is expensive in most countries, and cheap electricity is hard to access, and setup and maintenance is technical and time consuming.
As a result, hashrate concentrates in a few operators and pools, reducing decentralisation.
ShieldHash removes these barriers by letting users buy fractional hashrate as NFTs that represent shares of real-life miners, and receive daily shielded ZEC. A knock-on effect being that we broaden participation and help diffuse hashrate across smaller, community-aligned pools.
Proposed Solution
ShieldHash solves the access and decentralisation problem by turning Zcash hashrate into ownable, fractional ‘digital miners’, handling all the heavy lifting behind the scenes while keeping payouts ZEC-native and private.
Users purchase fractional hashrate as Solana NFTs priced per kH/s, lowest entry price of 1kH/s at ~$8.50 (will vary depending on purchase price of miners). During onboarding, our dApp generates a non-custodial Zcash shielded wallet client-side so the user receives a seed phrase and an address we never see. The NFT is then privately bound to that address via an onchain hash commitment (address stored off-chain), giving us a verifiable yet privacy-preserving route for payouts.
Operationally, we run the physical miners, and importantly we point them to smaller, community-aligned pools. This means we’re able to actively combat pool centralisation through our miner base. We’ll publish a clear pool selection policy that favors decentralisation and reliability.
Every day at 12:00 UTC we snapshot NFT ownership, compute each token’s share using kH/s × uptime factor × fee tier, and execute a single shielded batch payout that sends ZEC directly to registered addresses for the previous 24 hours. We plan to attach memo tags for the payout epoch and commitment ID, and publish attestations (pool stats, payout totals, fee deductions, ZEC transaction IDs, and a signed commitment ledger) so holders can verify distributions without exposing their addresses. Unregistered holders accrue entitlements in an Unclaimed bucket until they register.
The plan is that security and UX are baked into the product. So, keys never leave the user’s device, treasury operations use multisig, minimal hot balances, and strict monitoring. The planned app experience is two steps, (i) create wallet, register address and (ii) from then on holders simply receive daily shielded ZEC. We’re open to thoughts on how to enhance our processes here, we’re not wed to them. Economically, the per-kH/s model lets us set low entry points (e.g., ~$8.50/kH/s) while covering power, ops, and a transparent operator fee.
Per the Zcash Community Grants process, we plan to deliver this in phases. This application is for phase 1. Phase 1 ships an MVP on testnet, where we run a miner and implement the NFT mint with corresponding kH/s metadata, address binding, daily shielded distributions end-to-end, and public attestations. I’m super excited to build this out.
Current plan for phase 2 would be to move it to mainnet with a modest cluster and measured growth, and then for phase 3 we’d scale capacity in a low-cost, reliable jurisdiction (targeting Finland) once economics, reliability, and community impact are validated.
Success criteria for the overall project includes time-to-first-payout, daily payout reliability, hashrate under management, and a measurable increase in the share of hashrate directed to underrepresented Zcash pools.
Solution Format
The solution is a working software service with a live web dApp, Solana NFTs, and operational miner backend that delivers daily shielded ZEC payouts to users’ Zcash addresses.
Deliverables include (i) a production dApp that mints ‘digital miner’ NFTs on Solana and provides client-side Zcash wallet creation, (ii) a lightweight Solana program for NFT to address binding via hash commitments, (iii) a payout engine that snapshots holders daily at 12:00 UTC and executes a single shielded batch payout to registered addresses, (iv) a hosted attestations dashboard publishing payout totals, txids, and signed commitment ledgers, and (v) user-facing documentation (setup guide, security notes, payout policy) plus a short demo video of the MVP.
Dependencies
The dependencies for this specific project I’m applying for grant capital for are as follows:
Hardware:
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Zcash testnet miner (e.g., Antminer Z9 mini) with PSU, cabling, and a basic bench setup.
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Stable power for the test bench, of which I’ll be sourcing from my own home, so costs covering this would be helpful, but not a deal breaker.
Secure ops
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A dedicated payout machine (hardened laptop/mini-PC) for running zcashd and sending daily shielded payouts. I have one of these already.
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Hardware security keys and encrypted backups for wallets/configs.
Hosting & services
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Modest VPS/cloud instance to run a testnet zcashd full node and the small payout service for daily cron.
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Basic web hosting for the dApp and a lightweight attestations dashboard, e.g. payout totals, txids, signed ledgers.
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Paid Solana RPC tier for reliable indexing at snapshot time, and uptime monitoring.
Coordination
- For legal/admin it would be really helpful to have one domain and basic compliance docs, like T&Cs/Privacy for the MVP site, I can do this using AI I believe.
Note, this is for this application phase only, in the future as this progresses there will be more dependencies, though they fall outside of the scope of this grant.
Technical Approach
As mentioned, the goal here is to generate ‘digital miners’ (as Solana NFTs) that equate to Zcash hashrate, and pay holders daily shielded ZEC using a simple, privacy-preserving link between the NFT and a Zcash u-address the user creates client-side. Here’s how I plan on proving this in the first phase (MVP on testnet):
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For address creation, in the dApp, a WASM light-client will generate a seed and derive a ZIP-316 unified address in the browser.
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The digital miners minted as NFTs will be minted on Solana, we’ll use the Metaplex Token Metadata standard. Each NFT’s metadata will store key information about the machine it corresponds too, which will also be stored offchain for continuity in the other direction.
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For the NFT to address mapping, a minimal Solana program will record a hash commitment that proves the current NFT holder registered an address (the raw u-address stays offchain in an encrypted vault keyed by the commitment ID). Only the current owner can create or update the binding.
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Every day we’ll do an ownership snapshot, so at 12:00 UTC we query NFT ownership, resolve commitments to u-addresses in the vault, and compute weights per token, which are just based on the kH/s per NFT
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For the payout engine every day, a secured host runs zcashd and submits one daily batch payout using z_sendmany (open to other distribution methods) to all registered u-addresses, tagging memos with the payout epoch + commitment ID. Unregistered entitlements accrue in an ‘unclaimed’ bucket until the holder registers, or we could force register at NFT creation.
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For the mining, we want to point our rigs point to smaller, community-aligned pools, with failover to a secondary pool. Pool selection and failover rules are codified and reported.
Upstream Merge Opportunities
No forking or modifying of existing Zcash software.
Hardware/Software Costs (USD)
1,150
Hardware/Software Justification
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Used Antminer Z9 mini + PSU + shipping: $350, I’m currently watching two on eBay near me for approximately this price.
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Bench setup (PDU/smart plug, cabling, cooling fan): $110
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Refurbished mini-PC for secure payout ops: $360
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2× hardware security keys: $100
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Small UPS: $100
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Spares/Buffer (extra fan or PSU): $130
For justification, the miner and bench are required to run a real end-to-end MVP on Zcash testnet, exercise pool connectivity, and produce rewards that drive the payout pipeline. The dedicated mini-PC runs zcashd and the daily shielded batch payout job. Also key to isolate the keys and processes from general development machines. For the hardware on the security keys, I’d like to enforce and practise with strong operator auth for any treasury or payout actions. The UPS protects the filesystems and wallets during any outages and avoids payout interruptions, this is a back-up mechanism but I think important for the MVP as it will mirror the final system. The spares are for points of failure.
Service Costs (USD)
850
Service Costs Justification
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Electricity for test bench for 3 months at ~216 kWh/mo at ~$0.33/kWh: $215
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VPS for zcashd full node and payout engine for 3 months: $135
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Paid Solana RPC tier for 3 months: $147
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Object storage/CDN for daily ledgers & CSVs for 3 months: $35
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Static site hosting for dApp and attestations dashboard for 3 months: $45
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Monitoring and alerts for the miners/node/cron health for 3 months: $30
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Log aggregation and encrypted backups for 3 months: $60
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Domain and managed SSL for the year, to be allocated to MVP: $25
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Arweave/IPFS uploads for permanent audit artifacts: $40
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Webhook/indexing add-on e.g. Helius extras for 3 months: $60
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Usage overage & fees contingency: $58
Electricity covers running the test bench continuously so we can produce real rewards data and exercise the payout pipeline. A small VPS and paid Solana RPC ensure accurate daily snapshots and batch payouts. Basic hosting, object storage, and Arweave/IPFS let me publish txids and signed ledgers each day so distributions are auditable. Monitoring, logs, backups, and a public status page provide let me practise good hygiene that would be needed in final flow. The modest webhook/indexing add-on and a small contingency prevent interruptions during testing spikes.
Compensation Costs (USD)
0
Compensation Costs Justification
No compensation needed.
Total Budget (USD)
2,000
Previous Funding
No
Previous Funding Details
N/A
Other Funding Sources
No
Other Funding Sources Details
N/A
Implementation Risks
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Shielded batch sends can fail if the node lags or a job crashes. To mitigate this we can run a dedicated payout host with monitoring, retries, and a next-day catch-up routine.
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Risk that users may misconfigure or forget to register a u-address before the cutoff. We can run in-app checks, clear prompts, and use an ‘unclaimed’ accrual that auto-pays once an address is registered.
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Very small entitlements can be uneconomical to send daily. We could therefore run sensible dust thresholds with auto-rollover, and periodic consolidation.
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There’s a risk that the used hardware could fail. This is why I’m budgeting for a spare fan/PSU, UPS for safe shutdowns, and simple RMA/replace budget.
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Risk of primary pool downtime or API changes can interrupt stats or revenue, unlikely though. We could run a dual-pool failover, local monitoring, and conservative share accounting to mitigate.
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From a critical assessment of the UX, the wallet creation and seed backup can be a drop-off point. We will be able to assess this with a running MVP, but we could also use a two-step flow, mandatory seed confirmation, clear recovery instructions, and gentle reminders pre-cutoff.
Potential Side Effects
This would be a long was down the line, but running an easy, low-cost mining service could concentrate payouts through ShieldHash if we grow faster than expected, creating a new central point of operational failure. To mitigate this, we’ll publish our pool-selection policy and encourage/enable other operators to run the same payout flow.
There’s also a risk of dust-level ZEC sends increasing chain load, but again this is near-zero. We’ll use thresholds and rollover to reduce unnecessary transactions.
Success Metrics
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MVP delivered end-to-end on Zcash testnet, e.g. miner, daily snapshot, shielded batch payout, attestations flow, within the grant timeline of ~2 months and within the $2,000 budget.
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Maintain payout reliability of ≥99% of daily payout jobs executed on time, which is defined as 12:00 UTC ±15 min, with 0 missed days, with automatic catch-up if a job retries.
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100% of payout days have a published signed ledger + txids within 2 hours of payout.
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Test user onboarding with ≥10 test wallets created via the in-app generator and ≥90% complete address binding on first attempt.
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Test NFT flow, with ≥10 test ‘digital miner’ NFTs minted and 100% correctly reflect kH/s and bind to addresses.
Startup Funding (USD)
1,150
Startup Funding Justification
We need $1,150 in start-up funding to deliver the initial phase of an end-to-end daily shielded ZEC payouts on testnet. The budget covers a used Antminer Z9 mini + PSU, a secure payout host, UPS, basic spares, and essential services such as electricity for the test bench, a VPS running zcashd, paid Solana RPC, hosting/storage for public attestations, and monitoring. No compensation is requested.
These costs enable the listed deliverables, which are a live Metaplex test collection showing kH/s metadata, a synced zcashd node/VPS, an online dApp scaffold (domain + SSL), and a hashing testnet miner whose logs and status can be reviewed. This establishes the core infrastructure required for users to view the NFT representation of hashrate and for operators to generate real rewards data for payouts.
Milestone Details
- Milestone: 1
Amount (USD): 500
Expected Completion Date: 2025-12-18
User Stories:
- As a holder, I want to create a Zcash shielded wallet in-browser so that I never share keys.
- As a holder, I want my NFT linked to my Zcash address so that payouts can find me automatically.
Deliverables:
- Client-side (WASM) Zcash wallet generation (ZIP-316 u-address) with seed backup flow.
- Minimal Solana program for privacy-preserving NFT, with address hash-binding and offchain encrypted address vault.
- Daily 12:00 UTC snapshot job for ownership indexing and share calculator.
Acceptance Criteria:
- Reviewer can mint a test NFT, generate a u-address in-browser, bind it, and see the binding reflected , i.e. commitment ID, in the dApp.
- Binding updates only succeed for the current owner, so attempts by non-owners fail.
- Milestone: 2
Amount (USD): 350
Expected Completion Date: 2026-01-05
User Stories:
- As a holder, I want to receive daily shielded ZEC so that I can verify rewards without exposing my address.
- As a community reviewer, I want transparent records so that I can audit distributions.
Deliverables:
- Automated daily shielded batch payout on testnet using z_sendmany to registered u-addresses.
- Live attestations dashboard, with signed daily ledger, payout CSV, and txids.
- Seven-day reliability run and brief MVP report with next steps.
Acceptance Criteria:
- Reviewer observes at least 7 consecutive daily payouts on testnet and matching signed ledgers within 2 hours of payout.
- A test wallet created in Milestone 2 receives payouts on two or more consecutive days.
- MVP report and dashboard URL accessible, with downloadable CSVs for recomputation.