Marketing at ETHCC + Exxxotica, Chicago

[readymouse]

Hello again Zcash community,

@fabacab , @cos , and I just got back from ETHBoulder and ETHDenver, (see our trip summary) and we’re already planning the next leg. We wore our Zcash shirts, and every day we got stopped constantly with questions. @fabacab and I spoke at ETHBoulder, and walked away with 51 new Zodl users and 275+ individual conversations about ZEC in 9 days. Adding a third team member made a meaningful difference — in Buenos Aires with 2 people we onboarded 34 users; in Denver with 3 we hit 51. The pattern is clear, and we want to keep the momentum going.

We’re applying for $18,510 to bring a 3-4 person team to two events this spring:

ETHCC + ETHGlobal Cannes — March 30 - April 2, 2026 Europe’s longest-running Ethereum conference draws 10,000+ attendees and has a strong privacy-conscious developer community. This is also a meaningful strategic opportunity: at the Aleo/Miden Privacy Salon in Denver, @fabacab spent over an hour with the listing manager from Bitvavo — Europe’s largest spot exchange — who has been trying to get in touch with someone at Zcash about compliance questions and a potential ZEC listing. That connection has been forwarded to @paulbrigner , and ETHCC gives us a chance to continue building that relationship in person. The concurrent ETHGlobal hackathon also opens doors for developer-focused Zcash tooling conversations.

Exxxotica Chicago — April 10–12, 2026 This one might raise eyebrows, but hear us out. The adult industry is one of the most underserved verticals for financial privacy tools — content creators, sex workers, and gig workers face de-platforming, payment processor discrimination, and surveillance risks that Zcash directly addresses. Exxxotica draws 20,000–30,000 attendees who have a genuine, practical need for what we’re building. We’re also in active conversations with Bitrefill about a joint booth — Zcash as the on-ramp, Bitrefill as the off-ramp — which would reduce our booth costs and create a compelling, complete payments story for attendees. If the Bitrefill co-booth is confirmed, any savings will be returned to the grant.

Our track record:

* NYC Workshops

Each event we’ve come back with more users, more contacts, and more partnership leads. Two speaking invitations came directly out of our Denver presence — @fabacab and I have both been invited to speak at ETHConf on a privacy panel, and @fabacab and I spoke at ETHBoulder on practical Zodl and private payment processors usage respectively.

Budget summary:

• ETHCC Cannes (3 people, ~6 days): $10,730 — flights, hotel, food, incidentals, tickets

• Exxxotica Chicago (4 people, 3 days): $7,780 — flights, hotel, food, booth, reusable display materials

• Total: $18,510

Targets:

• 60+ new Zodl downloads at ETHCC, 40+ at Exxxotica

• 300+ conversations at ETHCC, 150+ at Exxxotica

• Trip reports with photos, metrics, and new user testimonials posted to this forum within 1 week of each event

Full application.

[fabacab]

I’m excited about this direction specifically because I know it can work. In 2025, I attended Exxxotica NJ on a whim and despite not even trying very hard I was able to get a number of performers, independent workers, and even vendors on the Exxxotica NJ floor to try out Zashi (it wasn’t Zodl at the time) just by walking around the floor and having organic conversations with people. Here’s a post with photos as an example: @violetrollergirl.com on Bluesky

This is a market segment I know extremely well and who is extremely receptive to what Zcash can provide. They just need a guide they can trust who can get things to make sense to them in their language.

Thanks again for the consideration. If any of you are in Chicago, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me directly as well.

[ZCG]

@readymouse ZCG has voted async to approve this proposal. Congratulations!

Please check your forum inbox for a direct message from FPF with important next steps, including a link to the Milestone Payment Request Form and your unique validation code for submitting payment requests.

[readymouse]

Update on ETHCC:

• We are all booked with flights, lodging, and tickets!
• In reaching out to connections, Hana of Oak Security that we met in Buenos Aires was excited to hear we were coming to ETHCC. She invited @fabacab to speak on a panel during a privacy focused side event. We are excited to see momentum growing, with opportunities for zcash’s presence expanding as we go from event to event. ( Infinite Privacy: Cocktail Aperitivo ZK, FHE or TEE? feat. ZCash, fhenix, ZiskVM (Jordi Baylina), Miden, Bermuda · Luma )
• We also plan to build on Buenos Aires connections and attend events run by the web3privacy now folks, as well as strengthen connections with webZero team.

Update on Exxxotica:

• We have booked the booth, lodging and found zcash knowledge folks to travel with us as we build a bigger team for this event. The team has been holding weekly meetings to prepare for the event.
• Backdrop, and booth informational sheets are going to the printer shortly in preparation for the event in early April.

[readymouse]

Hello friends,

@fabacab and I just returned from ETHCC + ETHGlobal Cannes — Europe’s longest-running Ethereum conference. Cannes is very different from Denver or Buenos Aires. The side events are deliberately intimate in scale, spread across small venues and private salons along the Riviera rather than large party venues. That intimacy meant fewer quick handshakes and more sustained, hour-long conversations over meals and drinks. This lead to a different kind of outreach, but one that felt deeply valuable.

From left to right: @paulbrigner Paul Brigner (ZODL, Inc.), @fabacab Violet Rollergirl and @readymouse Mylo Bennett

We posted daily on Twitter (@zReadyMouse) throughout the week, sharing selfies of new Zodl wallet app users alongside their unified addresses to welcome them into the community. We encountered quite a few ultra-privacy minded folks who didn’t want a selfie. Of the 20 new Zodl users, only 7 gave us permission to use their faces.

A note on our numbers: illness hit us twice — @cos was unable to join us in Cannes at all, and then @readymouse and @fabacab were both hit mid-trip. A double whammy, and a known risk explicitly called out in our grant application. Attending as a two-person team and losing days mid-event meaningfully affected our Zodl download count relative to prior events. Despite this, the quality of the connections we made and the depth of engagement across the week represents a different kind of win, outlined in detail below.

Notably, Violet was invited to speak on a panel that was well-attended and well-received, a kind of exposure only possible thanks to our increased momentum and consistent presence across multiple events.

Stats

• 20 new Zodl downloads

• ~150 individual interactions / conversations (tracked via ‘Protection is ZECsy’ condoms distributed)

• +23 new contact entries in @ReadyMouse 's phone

• +27 new contact entries in @fabacab 's phone

• 12 side events attended

• 2 main events attended (ETHCC + ETHGlobal Hackathon)

• Speaking engagement: @fabacab on panel at Oak Security event — ~90 attendees

Cumulative Impact Summary

* NYC Workshops — Supporting Financial Privacy Education for At-Risk Communities

Extended Connections Over Meals

Because of the intimate and small venues that characterize EthCC Cannes, we found ourselves in lengthy discussions over the course of the week, often over dinner or drinks, rather than the rapid-fire floor interactions typical of a large convention. Connections are organized below by ring: our closest Zcash-internal alignment first, privacy-native projects, and then the broader ecosystem.

Us and Zcash

Zcash Open Development Labs (ZODL)

We had lunch with Paul Brigner (@paulbrigner ) from ZODL. Conversation spanned the future direction of Zcash from ZODL’s perspective, as well as how our grassroots outreach efforts can formally connect with ZODL’s business development work. Follow-up meeting planned with Zodl’s business development lead.

Us and Privacy Projects

Fhenix

We have a pre-existing friendship with one member of the Fhenix team, and Cannes gave us the opportunity to meet the broader crew. Fhenix works on Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) for Solidity-based smart contracts — a privacy space that is meaningfully distinct from Zcash’s domain. Since Zcash does not currently play in smart contract execution, Fhenix are non-competitors, and we see strong potential for future event and marketing collaborations in the shared privacy ecosystem. The trip also confirmed their invitation for us to speak during ETHConf this summer.

Oak Security

Oak Security provides smart contract auditing services and hosted the privacy panel at which @fabacab spoke (event link) with approximately 90 people in attendance, a high-visibility opportunity to speak about the Zodl wallet and Zcash’s application usage for everyday users and in particular gig workers and de-banked individuals.

Hana, the panel organizer, was thrilled with @fabacab 's inclusion and is already thinking about next steps. Given Oak Security’s European base, the most natural venue for a follow-up collaboration would be during Berlin Blockchain Week, adding another compelling reason to include that event on our calendar.

Bermuda Labs

We had dinner with some members of Bermuda Labs in attendance. Bermuda Labs is building shielded transaction technology for ETH-based chains — conceptually similar to Railgun. They are relatively new to the privacy scene and are targeting institutions and larger players rather than everyday users. Their technology is non-overlapping with Zcash (bolt-on privacy for non-private chains versus Zcash’s privacy-first architecture), though the use case overlaps: both are trying to solve financial privacy. They are pre-launch, and early impressions of the UI and liquidity tokenomics left some open questions. One to watch, but not a direct competitor.

Nightfall Network

We had lunch with Paul Brody, friend and Founder/CEO of Nightfall Network and formerly the Global Blockchain Leader at EY, where he spent years building Nightfall, a public-domain ZK rollup for private enterprise transactions on Ethereum. Paul is now taking that work independent with Nightfall Network as his own venture. Conversation ranged across the future of privacy tech at the institutional level and the emerging space of agentic commerce. AI agents transacting autonomously in ways that will create new and urgent demands for private, verifiable payments.

Us and the Larger Ecosystem

Optimal DAO + YouHodlr

We shared a meal with Matthias “Matze” Goesser of Optimal DAO and Alexandra Lloyd of YouHodlr, a Swiss banking, crypto, and regulatory services firm. Alexandra handles legal work for YouHodlr.

Parity Technologies

The Parity Technologies team — the engineers behind Polkadot — joined us at dinner one night. Good to make connections with others active in the space, though no specific collaborations or follow-ups came out of the conversation.

turtle.xyz

We hit it off immediately with the BD and ecosystem engineer from turtle.xyz, a liquidity distribution protocol. Honestly, the technical overlap with Zcash is limited — different lanes. But the conversation was easy, genuine, and the kind of relationship that makes the conference circuit worthwhile even when it doesn’t produce an immediate collaboration.

Speaking Engagements

@fabacab joined a panel at the Oak Security event (https://luma.com/by5hcste) with ~90 attendees, speaking on privacy technology and Zcash’s role in the broader ecosystem. The talk was recorded, we will add a link to the video when it’s available.

Left to Right: Jordi Baylina – ZisK VM, Lauren Dutton of Fhenix, Hana Yoosuf of Oak Security, Violet of Zcash

User Stories & Conversation Notes

The following are direct reflections from conversations during the week, beyond the metrics.

“You’ve changed how I was thinking about privacy tech”

After a conversation with @ReadyMouse about Zodl as a Venmo replacement for everyday users, one attendee reflected:

“Interesting, you’ve changed how I was thinking about privacy tech. I’ve always thought that it was the whales and terrorists who wanted privacy, to hide their wealth — but it makes sense that normal people want privacy too.”

This is exactly the reframe our outreach is designed to create. The “whales and terrorists” misconception is one of the most common barriers to Zcash adoption (even if they don’t say it out loud), and the Venmo framing reliably cuts through it.

“You don’t even have to mention that it’s crypto”

@fabacab had a lengthy discussion with a marketing director about Zcash’s application for gig workers and the adult industry. Their assessment was pointed:

“Crypto has a really big problem because there were so many scams, and now everyone in crypto is trying to convince everyone else that it’s not a scam even though it doesn’t give them anything they don’t already have. But you are very smart, you are solving a problem for people and you don’t even have to mention that it’s crypto. That’s the way everyone else should be doing it, but they don’t have a product market fit. You do.”

An unsolicited validation of our core thesis: lead with the problem, not the technology. From a marketing director, this lands differently than internal consensus.

Strategic Event Portfolio

1. DevConnect Argentina — November 17–22, 2025 (Complete)

• First-ever “Ethereum World’s Fair” with global developer community

• Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress #2 by Web3Privacy Now + ETHBuenos Aires

→ Impact: +34 new Zodl users, +175 personal conversations about Zcash

2. ETHDenver — February 17–21, 2026 (Complete)

• Largest free Ethereum event with 18,000+ attendees and major hackathon component

→ Impact: +51 new Zodl users, +275 personal conversations about Zcash

3. ETHCC + ETHGlobal Cannes — March 30 – April 3, 2026 (Complete)

• Europe’s longest-running Ethereum conference (10,000+ attendees)

• Intimate venue format led to deep, multi-hour engagements with key ecosystem players

• @fabacab on panel at Oak Security event (~90 attendees)

→ Impact: ~20 new Zodl users, ~150 individual interactions

4. Exxxotica Chicago — April 10–12, 2026 (Upcoming)

• Adult industry professional trade show and conference

• Heavy values-alignment: privacy-aware audience with genuine payment privacy needs

• Zcash Kitchen booth, where Privacy is the Secret Ingredient

5. ETHConf + ETHGlobal NYC — June 8–10, 2026 (Future Vision)

• Home base — no travel costs

• Speaking engagement invitation extended by Fhenix team

• Premier East Coast Ethereum event; strong developer and institutional presence

6. Berlin Blockchain Week — June 14–20, 2026 (Pending Grant)

• Potential Zcash x WebZero co-hosted event during Berlin Blockchain Week

• Potential follow-up collaboration with Oak Security from Cannes panel

7. Exxxotica Minneapolis — June 26–28, 2026 (Pending Chicago Outcomes)

• 4 team members attending

• Zcash Kitchen booth activation with full pouch and apron mechanic

• Follow-up with Minneapolis-based contacts and vendors encountered at Chicago

8. Boston Blockchain Week — September 7–11, 2026 (Future Vision)

• Second home base — no travel costs

• Strong local network; natural opportunity for community building and developer outreach in our own backyard

9. Korean Blockchain Week / ETHTokyo — September 22–29, 2026 (Future Vision)

• Expanding Zcash’s footprint into the Asian market

• Combined Korea and Tokyo coverage during a dense week of events

10. Exxxotica New Jersey — October 23–25, 2026 (Pending Chicago Outcomes)

• 4 team members

• Train-accessible from Boston/NYC — no flights required, reduced travel cost

• Zcash Kitchen booth

• Strong local network opportunity given proximity to NYC community

11. Zcon7 — October 27–29, 2026, Mexico (Future Vision)

• Zcash’s own annual conference — the community’s home event

• High-value opportunity to reconnect with core ecosystem, present grassroots outreach results, and coordinate on roadmap alignment

12. Exxxotica Fort Lauderdale — December 4–6, 2026 (Pending Chicago Outcomes)

• Keep momentum in the industry

• Zcash Kitchen booth

• Follow-up with contacts and vendors encountered at Chicago, Minneapolis, and New Jersey

Thank you to the Zcash community for your continued support. On to Chicago!

We are planning a Mama’s Zcash Kitchen theme for the booth. Inspired by my mother saying “you should give out milk and cookies”, we are giving out bandaids, mouthwash and other sensible SWAG items inside a Zcash branded pouch. Zcash is a good, reliable, everyday-use app and as such, we wanted the SWAG to be equally useful. The pouches include a QR code to download the Zodl wallet, QR code to a written guide, as well as links to CipherPay.app for e-commerce, BitRefill for gift card off-ramping, and the Payy Network payment card for Visa-based reloadable debit card off-ramp solutions.

— @ReadyMouse , @fabacab

[readymouse]

Hello friends,

@fabacab and I just returned from Exxxotica Chicago with Bianca Stone and Kat. This was an adult entertainment industry and content creator convention.

Attending crypto conferences is like planting a few seed, and holding the conversation to nurture the tiny seed so it may sprout into a wallet download. This conference was like casting 600 seeds on obviously fertile ground, and then letting them grow more or less on their own.

We also continued training Bianca and Kat on how to teach and talk about Zcash. They both attended Vi’s workshops in NY, and took on the hands-on apprenticeship of working the Zcash booth with us, creating two very strong privacy educators with specialized knowledge to perform effective outreach in this specific industry.

At Exxxotica Chicago, we cast 600 seeds in the wild, but also watched two saplings mature into trees to expand the Zcash community orchard!

Unlike our more provocative marketing during cryptocurrency conferences, we went with a wholesome kitchen theme for our booth. The yellow kitchen was a visually distinct contrast from all the other dark, red, sultry displays, and thus was successful in drawing curiosity.

We posted daily on Twitter (@zReadyMousezReadyMouse), with user stories and conversations we held over the weekend.

Day 1: https://x.com/zReadyMouse/status/2043031078818951280
Day 2: https://x.com/zReadyMouse/status/2043364297158385957

Day 3: https://x.com/zReadyMouse/status/2043488533545972165

Note: There was basically no working Wi-Fi, and cell reception in the expo hall was very poor. This resulted in attendees being unable to scan QR codes successfully, and also unable to download Zodl at the event itself.

Stats

• ~700 individual interactions / conversations (tracked via ‘Protection is ZECsy’ condoms distributed, and SWAG pouches)

• +25 new contact entries in @ReadyMouse’s phone

• +37 new contact entries in @fabacab’s phone

• 2 side events attended

• 1 main event attended + booth

• 2 new Zcash advocators + educators intensively trained

Cumulative Impact Summary

* NYC Workshops — Supporting Financial Privacy Education for At-Risk Communities

Interesting Conversations

Podcast Recordings + Invitations

We recorded a few podcasts/vlogs on-site, and we will post when videos/podcast are published. Vi was also invited onto the Suburban Slut Podcast and the Just Cruzin’ podcast, which is an AVN-nominated show. We will follow-up with these creators to produce additional media as time allows.

User Stories

→ “Fuck CashApp, they banned me!” – Heard from an attendee

We would often start the conversation with “have you ever been banned off a payment app?” or “have you ever bought things you didn’t want on your bank statement?” As we suspected, the adult industry intuitively understands the significance of what Zcash offers: a payment app that CAN’T ban you. While this is a different slogan than other Zcash statements, it was highly effective for this case.

→ “Oh, I’ve been banned off Twitter, and Twitch!” – gamer/streamer

The adult gaming industry is also being pushed off mainstream platforms, as MasterCard and others put pressure on Steam, Twitch, etc to push off adult-themed video games, or streamers making adult-content. This was another example of a market segment in the adult space who showed instant interest in what Zcash offers.

→ “My favorite part of this con was meeting y’all, I’ve can get ass anywhere, but what you’re doing was unexpected and useful!” – attendee

Both Mylo and Vi had a long conversation with this crypto-aware attendee about Zcash and its differences from other coins. This was one of only 3 or 4 attendees who showed any meaningful knowledge of cryptocurrencies before speaking with us.

→ “Buenos días! I set up CipherPay last night but I need multi-language support. How do I translate it into Spanish?” —fellow exhibitor and content creator in attendance

We were blown away by the immediate adoption and integration! On day 3 of the expo, a producer/content creator who had visited us earlier in the weekend returned to ask for direct technical support with an integration he was working on for his website that very weekend, sparked by our first conversation.

I clarified with @Kenbak , that CipherPay has the ability to detect the browser’s language, and translate the buttons as needed.

Lessons Learned

→ “Crypto == Scam” this concept is strongly embedded in the adult industries and their adjacent communities.

We avoided the word “crypto” where at all possible, talking instead about “currency” or “coins”. We recorded a custom clip showcasing this where you can hear how Violet introduces the concept of Zcash and talk about the booth concept where she purposefully doesn’t mention “crypto”.

Vi, that trans girl with the QR code tattoo

Other notes:

- We had no internet access at the booth and since we didn’t have mobile phone reception either, we were severely limited in what we could actively demonstrate.The expo producers did offer an optional add-on for a Wi-Fi router that could be considered for future events to facilitate Zodl wallet downloads or just even the ability to scan the QR codes.

- The business cards we printed with their Guide to Zcash and Zodl wallet links in the form of QR codes on them were very useful despite the poor Internet connectivity at the venue itself. We should have printed more!

- The harm reduction supplies, especially the fentanyl test strips, were a big hit, and we should consider using them again in the future. (lol…Monero helps you buy drugs, Zcash can help you stay safe while using them?.)

- I packed too many plastic standers for signs, our table only has space for 2-3.

- The yellow kitchen backsplash doesn’t work as well without words, but they need to be the right words. We added an extra removable sign with a punchy tagline to allow us to cater the slogan to the event. This makes the kitchen backdrop re-useable for future events with a different audience. For this event, we printed: “Zcash: Sell Privately. Buy Anonymously.” on the sign.

- Most people stayed for 3-5 minutes to hear our pitch, ask a few questions, and move on. Many of them later returned for follow-up questions, but we expect that for most people this is a “first exposure” event and we provided a high-value initial touch point that will be reaped later. A few stayed longer for deeper technical or functional conversations, and many of these were performers or content creators themselves. The most valuable population to reach out to are the ones who have an immediate need to switch away from traditional payment apps, and in this industry that means creators themselves, not (yet) their customers.

Strategic Event Portfolio

1. DevConnect Argentina — November 17–22, 2025 (Complete)

• First-ever “Ethereum World’s Fair” with global developer community

• Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress #2 by Web3Privacy Now + ETHBuenos Aires

→ Impact: +34 new Zodl users, +175 personal conversations about Zcash

2. ETHDenver — February 17–21, 2026 (Complete)

• Largest free Ethereum event with 18,000+ attendees and major hackathon

→ Impact: +51 new Zodl users, +275 personal conversations about Zcash

3. ETHCC + ETHGlobal Cannes — March 30 – April 3, 2026 (Complete)

• Europe’s longest-running Ethereum conference (10,000+ attendees)

• Intimate venue format led to deep, multi-hour engagements with key ecosystem players

• @fabacab on panel at Oak Security event (~90 attendees)

→ Impact: ~20 new Zodl users, ~150 individual interactions

4. Exxxotica Chicago — April 10–12, 2026 (Complete)

• +30,000 Attendees, with +700 stopping by the Zcash kitchen

• Adult industry professional trade show and conference

• Zcash Kitchen: “From bandaids to payment apps that can’t ban you, Zcash has you covered”

→ Impact: ~700 individual interactions

5. ETHConf + ETHGlobal NYC June 8 - 10, 2026 (Future Vision)

• Home base — no travel costs
• Speaking engagement invitation extended by Fhenix team
• Premier East Coast Ethereum event; strong developer and institutional presence

6. Berlin Blockchain Week — June 14–20, 2026 (Approved)

• Zcash x WebZero co-hosted 2-day event during Berlin Blockchain Week

• Potential follow-up collaboration with Oak Security from Cannes panel

7. Boston Blockchain Week — September 7–11, 2026 (Future Vision)

• Second home base — no travel costs

• Strong local network; natural opportunity for community building and developer outreach in our own backyard

8. Exxxotica New Jersey — October 23–25, 2026 (Future Vision)

• 4 team members attending

• Train-accessible from Boston/NYC — no flights required, reduced travel cost

• Zcash Kitchen booth, with pouches including Zcash information

• Strong local network opportunity given proximity to NYC community

9. Zcon7 — October 27–29, 2026, Mexico (Future Vision)

• Zcash’s own annual conference — the community’s home event

• High-value opportunity to reconnect with core ecosystem, present grassroots outreach results, and coordinate on roadmap alignment

10. Exxxotica Fort Lauderdale — December 4–6, 2026 (Future Vision)

• Keep momentum in the adult entertainment industry

• Zcash Kitchen booth, likely possibility to train additional industry-specific apprentices

• Follow-up with contacts and vendors encountered at Chicago and New Jersey

Thank you to the Zcash community for your continued support. Onward, to Berlin!

— @ReadyMouse, @fabacab