Grant Application - Zchat

Community Grants
1

Hi Zcash Community!

We’re Alex and Jason from ZCHAT, a Zcash-native messenger that turns the Zcash shielded pool into a private chat transport. ZCHAT gives users a self-custody Zcash wallet in the browser and lets them send DMs, group messages as shielded transactions with structured memos — “Telegram-style chat, Zcash under the hood.”

github.com/ZcashCommunityGrants/zcashcommunitygrants

Grant Application – ZCHAT
opened Nov 26, 2025
decentrathai
:clipboard: Grant Application :eyes: Ready For ZCG Review

The current ZCHAT MVP is already live as a web app for internal testing (Next.js + React + PWA) backed by a Rust/WASM light client and self-hosted zcashd + lightwalletd on mainnet. Today, a user can:

  • Create a self-custody Zcash wallet in the browser (seed never leaves the client).

  • Back up their seed and share their Unified Address as text or QR.

  • Sync via lightwalletd and see messages parsed from memos.

  • Send on-chain DMs by building and signing transactions in WASM and broadcasting through a lightweight Node.js backend.

  • Rotate addresses/wallets with UX that preserves conversations.

Our proposal is to take this from “developer-grade prototype” to a production-ready product that the broader Zcash community can safely use and build on. Concretely, we plan to:

  • Finish and harden the Rust/WASM light client (wallet-core): sync reliability, Orchard support, error handling, memo parsing, and tests.

  • Define and implement structured memo formats (ZMSGv1 for DMs, ZGRPv1 for groups, ZROTv1 for address rotation).

  • Make our Zcash infra production-ready: documented zcashd + lightwalletd deployment, monitoring, backups, and redundancy.

  • Add group chats and ship mobile builds by wrapping the PWA for Android/iOS.

  • Commission an external security review, publish docs, and run a polished hosted instance for early adopters.

We’re asking for a $60,000 grant, broken into four milestones through the end of 2026 (core wallet + infra, DMs & rotation & UX, groups & mobile, and finally security review + docs + public launch).

Nostr & additional privacy strengthening

Beyond “Zcash as transport,” we’re actively exploring how to plug ZCHAT into Nostr and other privacy-enhancing layers:

  • Using Nostr as an optional signaling/notification layer (e.g., contact discovery, message hints, or push-like notifications), while keeping actual message content and value transfer in Zcash shielded transactions.

  • Experimenting with ways to decouple network metadata (IP, timing, etc.) from Zcash usage by leveraging Nostr relays and other privacy-friendly transports.

  • Investigating additional privacy hardening for ZCHAT, such as better defaults for address rotation, minimizing linkable patterns (amounts, timing), and giving users more control over what infrastructure they connect to (self-hosted nodes, custom lightwalletd, Tor-friendly setups, etc.).

  • Access to ipfs storage of images and audio via Nostr

Our goal is to make ZCHAT not just “chat over Zcash,” but a flexible privacy-focused messaging stack that can evolve with the ecosystem and interoperate with other tools.

We’d really appreciate your feedback on:

  • The overall approach of using Zcash memos as the transport layer.

  • The proposed memo formats and address rotation semantics.

  • The Nostr integration ideas and other directions for strengthening privacy and metadata resistance.

  • What you’d consider must-have features for a first public release.

Thanks a lot for taking the time to read this and for any comments, questions, or concerns you’re willing to share! :folded_hands:

Alex
ZCHAT :rocket:

Zcash Community Grants Meeting Minutes 12/8/2025
2

Hi, I’d like to bring your attention to this grant application thread: Zemo - Your Web3 Inbox

What are your thoughts on this?

Nice to see interest in Nostr integration for Zcash apps. I think using Zcash memos as a way of starting a chat with someone by sending a link to an ephemeral encrypted chat with a Nostr public key, and exchanging messages off-chain via a web or native app could be interesting. A recipient could then set a minimum cost to send a message to them, working as a way to filter out spam.

2 Likes
3

Would you be able to provide any examples of projects or open-source contributions that you’ve worked on in the past and could you comment on your tech background? Also what is your usage of LLMs?

2 Likes
4

Are you related to the 2024 ZECHUB Hackathon entry zchat?

I am skeptical of any pay-to-text system, as I just don’t think it will get much traction. Especially not with free encrypted messaging systems already available: Signal, Session, etc.

The address rotation is definitely interesting, a sort of frequency hopping radio for text messages, for extreme privacy minded folks and perhaps as an emergency back-up if Signal goes down for limited messaging.

1 Like
5

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.

1 Like
6

Hey! Thanks a lot for your reply!
I was thinking about the flow when chain will be flooded by tonnes of messages but we’ll find a solution. It will not be micropayments only. One of the ways is to increase cost of message in case of chain overusege. Another option is to unite messages in to the batch but w’ll investigate it more in the future after internal testing of the current stage will be accomplished and will be available for public.
This option with spam avoid is also useful - thanks for sharing your thoughts!

7

LLMs are the basement of this project atm. Cursor, Claude Code and even Banana Pro with Veo 3.1 :slight_smile:
My background don’t include any open sourse projects - i’m mostly playing as project manager and founder. My team-mate @Jason is real developer but i’m unable to share his experience here -trust me it is more than enough for this kind of project. He and his company is developing browsers, LLMs, traditional web2.0 apps and some other stuff.

This project is driven by the feeling of protest against behaviour of the governments that cutting our rights and freedom - the only goal we have - to make private communication alive again!

My chat is my chat only!

8

Thank you!

  1. I’m not related to any previous projects with same name or service idea.

  2. I’m also sceptical about fast mass-adoption and so on but I’m sure that this messenger will be useful and necessary for people in many countries where state want to control every word of their citizens. And it will help us to grow and let people live and communice privately. I’m sure that we’ll find the solution or partnership that will allow us to have not only text. audio and images but direct online calls with high-eng quality

9

Thank you for the shielded tech and infra anyway :slight_smile:
We’ll proceed by ourselves then

10

keep an eye on zsend.xyz

11

We got a prize from Zypherpunk Hackathon :slight_smile: