We’re excited to share that our team at Eiger (part of Equilibrium Group) has submitted a proposal to the Zcash Community Grants program for the ZEC-NAM shielded airdrop protocol.
The aim is simple: enable Zcash holders to claim Namada tokens without giving up their privacy.
We understand this is something the community has been waiting for since the Namada team first discussed a shielded airdrop back in late 2023. It’s an idea that connects two ecosystems built on shared values — and we’re excited at the prospect of bringing it to life.
Best wishes
Olli Tiainen,
Eiger/Equilibrium
P.S. We’ve had the pleasure of contributing to Zcash since 2021 through Ziggurat network testing and the Network Sustainability Mechanism (NSM). We look forward to continuing to support Zcash through this grant.
Hi hi! Amazing to see interest here! I suspect that you’re already aware, but just as a reminder, I have an open $20k microgrant commitment (for which there have been no serious takers yet). This is quite a bit less than what you’re asking for from ZCG, but I’d be glad to contribute my funds in a collaborative way – I’ll defer to ZCG as I’m not familiar with their processes, but happy to take part however makes sense.
I assume the grant covers the science and the tooling on how to let others execute similar airdrops from the shielded pool? If that’s the case (if it isn’t, OP why not?) then the value of having this infrastructure is detached with this specific $ value?
Part of it would be, but (at least in the protocol we specified, detailed in the other topic) part of it would not be, we wanted to make the protocol design conducive to future shielded airdrops by other projects. I’m not sure what exactly @olliten’s plans might be there, that’s a question for them.
As far as Namada is concerned, it’s difficult to promise an exact $ value as the market fluctuates quite a bit at the moment. Realistically, Cosmos ecosystem cryptocurrencies are not popular at the moment – at Namada’s current FDV of ~$10m, it’s unlikely that the airdrop amount would be material especially considering Zcash’s recent price movements.
could we get a amount of max NAM tokens that are available for this airdrop to Zcashers? i havent been able to find the number. it’s not crucial but would be nice to still know.
I think it was incredible to see folks like @cwgoes come to the Zcash community and propose an airdrop to us. We have to remember this was in 2024 when things looked way different than now. So big up to him.
It also reflects why I think this work is really special - it combines an actual airdrop to loyal ZEC holders to also a tool that will be open source and can be used in the future for other airdrops too.
I was just discussed this with some other folks and we realised a tool like this could also be developed further for multiple uses even beyond future airdrops. If you can anonymously prove you were in the shielded ZEC pool at certain times, that proof could be used to grow shielded pool usage! Imagine you get a reward for being in the shielded pool in certain snapshot timeframes for example.
While the immediate utility of this proposal for the Zcash-Namada alliance is clear, I am interested in the potential for this work to provide lasting architectural value to the ecosystem. Ideally, the mechanisms developed here would serve as a reusable primitive for future Zcash functionality like a generalized system allowing users to prove ownership of any Zcash asset (ZEC or future ZSAs) to securely claim ZSA airdrops or cross-chain assets.
Could you speak to the extensibility of your proposed architecture? To what degree is this being designed as a reusable framework versus a single-use tool?
Additionally, could you clarify the workflow regarding the requirement that the “user signs the claim with Zcash spending key”’? Specifically, does this require users to export their keys and import them into a new tool or library? I want to understand the implications for user security and key hygiene.
Yes, we’re designing this as a modular, reusable stack.
A Sapling + Orchard note scanner built on existing Zcash libraries.
A reusable private-ownership proof module for “prove you own these notes at snapshot height,” intended to be generic for Zcash-adjacent uses (private airdrops, attestations, cross-chain claims).
A Namada chain-side verifier implemented as native Rust transaction validation logic; Namada-specific, but a reference template for other ecosystems verifying Zcash ownership proofs.
We haven’t finalized the signing flow yet, but our guiding constraint is that users shouldn’t have to export or share spending key material. Ownership will be proven via a local signature - ideally using a one-time signing key derived from the spending key with offline support for cold wallets.
Does this mean wallets will need to support the new signing method? Some of the details suggest this will be written in rust? If so will this be provided support/example for any other languages/platforms at completion?
We haven’t finalized the UX yet, and we’re planning to explore the available design space in depth in the coming weeks. As part of that work, we welcome input from the committee and the broader community to converge on a functional design.
Thanks @olliten. Given that much of the core Zcash ecosystem is now built in Rust, I imagine writing the library in Rust, while providing SDKs for other languages as needed, would strengthen integration and support long-term collaboration across the Zcash core ecosystem.
@olliten at the most recent meeting, ZCG voted to approve this proposal. Congratulations!
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