Hi everyone,
We’ve submitted a Zcash Community Grants proposal focused on making it easier for African users to move between local currency and self-custodial ZEC.
The problem we’re trying to solve is simple: How easy is it today for an African user to buy ZEC with local currency and later convert that ZEC back into local currency when needed?
For many users, the process can look like:
Local currency → exchange/P2P → stablecoin or another crypto → ZEC → self-custodial wallet
Off-ramping often means reversing the same process. That can mean extra fees, more accounts, more custodial exposure, and unnecessary friction.
Our proposal aims to simplify that to:
Local currency → ZEC → self-custodial wallet
Self-custodial ZEC → local currency
using African payment rails already supported through KuvarSend.
What we submitted
The project combines:
Kestrel — an open-source, self-custodial Zcash wallet.
ZecAuth — a secure wallet-to-application connection layer that allows apps to interact with the wallet without receiving the user’s seed phrase or spending keys.
KuvarSend — our existing African payments infrastructure for local currency collection and settlement.
The architecture is:
African Payment Rails ↔ KuvarSend ↔ ZecAuth ↔ Kestrel
For the user, the experience should be much simpler:
Pay with local currency → receive ZEC directly into your own wallet.
Send ZEC from your own wallet → receive local currency.
Kestrel remains a standalone self-custodial Zcash wallet and does not require KYC. Any KYC or compliance requirement related to a regulated fiat transaction remains on the KuvarSend side.
GitHub: Github Issue Link
Prototype Demo Video: Kuvarsend + ZecWallet Prototype Demo
The video shows the current prototype interaction between the wallet, ZecAuth, and KuvarSend. The grant is intended to take this from a working prototype to a production-ready, documented, tested, and publicly usable implementation.
We’d like feedback from African Zcash users
Now that the proposal has been submitted, we’d especially like to hear from people who use, hold, buy, or try to access ZEC across Africa.
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Which country are you using Zcash from?
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How do you currently buy ZEC with local currency?
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How do you currently cash out ZEC?
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What creates the most friction: fees, liquidity, payment methods, exchange availability, withdrawal support, KYC, or something else?
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Would local currency → self-custodial ZEC in one flow be useful to you?
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Would self-custodial ZEC → local currency make Zcash more practical for you?
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Which payment methods matter most in your market: bank transfer, mobile money, fintech wallets, or others?
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Which African markets should we prioritize first?
We want to make sure this solves a real access problem for African users, not just a problem we assume exists.
If easier on-ramping and off-ramping would make ZEC more useful in your market, we’d really value your feedback.
Thanks.