Zec.rocks is seeking retroactive funding for the wallet infrastructure that we hosted over the past 16 months, as well as maintaining its associated open source infrastructure-as-code.
I’m posting here for community discussion, as required by the Lockbox Coinholder Retroactive Grants Program. Feedback and questions welcome, in this thread or on the issue.
| Applicant | Zec.rocks (@emersonian) |
| Category | Infrastructure |
| Requested amount | $584,992 USD |
| Period of work | April 2025 to August 2026 (16 months) |
Summary
Zec.rocks ran the infrastructure powering 16 months of uptime for every major Zcash wallet. Great infrastructure is invisible: wallets operated smoothly as we were on-call monitoring global edge locations, supporting core teams with testing new software at scale, and deploying critical updates including the careful Orchard security response before it was published.
What Zec.rocks is
If you use Zcash, you probably use Zec.rocks.
When you open a wallet, it connects to the Zcash network through a “light wallet server.”
Zec.rocks is the default server in Zashi, Zodl, Zingo, Ywallet, and Zkool, and the secondary in Vizor and Cake Wallet. That is because we are obsessive about providing the fastest possible sync experience, by deploying our servers as close to users as possible. We host Zcash at “the edge.”
- 37 edge routers in 11 cities. When your wallet connects to Zec.rocks, anycast directs you to our closest router, which connects you to our closest backend cluster.
- Backend clusters in 9 cities: NYC, Houston, Los Angeles, São Paulo, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Singapore, Sydney, and Johannesburg. Each runs multiple full Zcash nodes and light wallet servers, so we can update Zcash software without downtime.
- Dedicated hardware in most regions for increased autonomy, with occasional use of hyperscalers when we need to scale quickly in an unexpected place.
- 240 million requests served in July 2026 alone.
It is best that Zcashers host Zcash infrastructure, because we are privacy fanatics: we maintain a strict no IP logging policy, and minimize all logging across our stack wherever possible. We are also advocates of all wallets moving to Tor and Nym, so that we can deprecate our public internet some day. Zec.rocks has hosted Tor hidden services (.onion) for light wallet connections since 2024.
Technical approach
Reproducible, open source infrastructure
Our entire stack is transparent and can be deployed by anyone technical. We publish the open source code that we use to run our global infrastructure. It uses haproxy at the edge, and Kubernetes for our Zcash nodes. It is called zcash-stack, and we keep it updated as we deploy the latest Zcash software.
Over-provisioned capacity allows us to handle unusual peaks without degrading sync times. Extra capacity also gives us more options to localize and mitigate DDOS attacks. Great infrastructure is invisible to end-users.
We are on-call 24/7 responding to unexpected peaks and DDOS attacks. We are also typically the first to deploy new software built by Zcash core teams, providing feedback and code improvements informed by our experience with operating Zcash at scale.
Hosh: observability for all light wallet servers
We built an open source utility to help all ecosystem server operators monitor their light wallet servers: Hosh (source).
We also built zecping, a utility to help operators quickly ping servers to see which are responding properly and which are closest to them.
Training more light wallet operators
Empowering more people to host more light wallet servers, further decentralizing the network, is a passion. We hosted a node workshop that rewarded participants a total of $72,427 (from a private donor) over the span of six months.
Budget
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
| Dedicated hosting providers | $72,427 |
| Cloud hosting providers | $27,041 |
| GitHub Actions | $2,170 |
| Engineering, payroll, benefits (Senior Site Reliability Engineer, 14 months) | $483,354 |
| Total | $584,992 |
Success metrics
Zec.rocks is the default server powering every major Zcash wallet today.
Below are graphs of the limited data that we do log, covering the past 14 months, including our monthly hosting expenses and the amount of wallet requests served.
A note regarding metrics: we do not log request data. True wallet traffic is underreported, as most Zcash wallets use long-lived streaming connections. If a user is connected to a streaming endpoint, receiving realtime data which otherwise would have resulted in dozens of requests, that is only counted once.
Proof of completion
- zcash-stack: the open infrastructure we use to power Zec.rocks
- hosh: uptime monitoring for light wallet servers
Funding history and disclosures
Previous funding: we received $45,000 from ZCG on April 1st, 2024 for one year of hosting. The Zcash network has grown substantially since then and has become much more costly to host.
Other funding sources: we intend to apply for future grants for software development expenses unrelated to operating the Zec.rocks infrastructure.
Conflict of interest: I am the founder of an early-stage tech startup that has raised funding from private investors. I have used a portion of that funding to cover these costs, and intend to reimburse my company for the expenses if this retroactive grant is approved.
Happy to answer any questions! We’ll keep running our infrastructure no matter what. ZEC rocks!
