Retroactive Grant Application: THORSwap/Metro

Community Grants Retroactive Grants
1

ZM everyone! I am submitting a retroactive grant proposal on behalf of THORSwap and Metro (our new DeFi app with built-in wallet supporting Zcash).

(Even though we’ve selected the Non-Wallet Applications category, we’ve already completed support for our new native self-custodial wallet in Metro which supports Zcash wallet addresses, this will be updated on THORSwap shortly).

Who are we?

Established in 2021, THORSwap is a no-KYC DEX supporting cross-chain swaps across leading ecosystems such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Zcash, Solana, XRP, BNB and much more via permissionless non-custodial protocols.

THORSwap integrated Zcash on October 1st 2025, enabling users to perform native cross-chain swaps directly to and from native ZEC via self-custodial wallets. Over the past 6 months, we have processed $50M+ in $ZEC volume with a $520K+ largest single swap record.

We’ve also just launched Metro.exchange, our new DeFi superapp currently in beta, with native Zcash network support via our new embedded Metro wallet for $ZEC swaps, send, portfolio and asset management while ensuring users retain full self-custody.

What We’ve Shipped

This proposal requests $60,000 to recognize 7 months of completed R&D, engineering, QA, support, maintenance and marketing work that established THORSwap as a leading decentralized exchange for institutional and retail Zcash users seeking cross-chain liquidity.

THORSwap integrated ZEC support through two independent routing protocols (Maya Protocol and NEAR Intents) via SwapKit SDK (previously THORSwap SDK), contributed to Zcash wallet integrations supporting hardware and software wallet interfaces, and continue delivered comms & marketing to onboard users to Zcash ecosystem.

So far we’ve achieved:

  • Processed $50 Million+ in native ZEC cross-chain swaps

  • Executed 10+ swaps exceeding $300k each, largest: $520,718

  • Maintained $8.9M average monthly ZEC volume in 2025

  • Average ZEC swap: ~$22k (general), ~$46k (BTC ↔ ZEC)

  • 45% of total ZEC volume from swaps over $100k

  • Zcash represents 3% of total THORSwap platform volume

  • Wide mainstream media awareness & recognition (ie. Bitcoin.com, CoinDesk, Yahoo Finance)

THORSwap x Zcash

THORSwap is proud to be recognized on the Zcash ecosystem directory as a Zcash DEX.

We are committed to supporting Zcash long-term:

  • Maintaining ZEC support on THORSwap and Metro dApps

  • Supporting new providers: THORChain Zcash integration on the roadmap

  • Providing ongoing customer support for ZEC users via dedicated support desk

  • Implementing protocol upgrades as Zcash network evolves (e.g., future consensus upgrades, wallet compatibility)

  • Monitoring and optimizing ZEC routing liquidity across Maya and NEAR protocols

We are also in the process of planning:

  • Additional new chain integrations for ZEC swaps (ie. TON, Starknet, Stellar, Midnight)

  • Zcash-specific feature enhancements (e.g., shielding support via external wallets and our new native embedded Metro wallet solution, direct swaps to shielded addresses)

  • Ongoing marketing for Zcash ecosystem growth and user education

  • Zcash DeFi integrations (e.g., potential ZEC lending or earn products via NEAR or Solana)

Happy to answer any questions. Thank you for considering this application.**

Grant Proposal Link Below:**

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2

I like Thorswap (haven’t used it in a bit to be honest) but lately I have heard stories that your passkeys implementation for some cryptos are completely broken. Users can create a passkey, deposit funds to it and then they are not able to do anything (either swapping or withdrawing). And your support is completely unreachable unless you crawl your way into dystopian Discord.

Can you confirm if it’s true or not?

3

Hi @gigantes I’m not quite sure of the exact specific issue you are referring to so I’ll list a couple of potential scenarios that come to mind:

  1. First is our Passkeys wallet integration (not to be confused with the digital credential authentication method, this is the wallet sdk standard by the Exodus team). There could be cases in the past where it doesn’t interact well with the swap providers we aggregate, we obviously work with the Exodus team to debug and fix depending on which side of the problem stems from. But as far as the wallet itself is considered, it’s still a self-custodial wallet and users can always send funds/export keys.
  2. We also support Keystore wallets (which encrypts seeds + passphrase locally as a JSON file). This is actually the most tested and robust solution, but of course users have to backup their seed phrase/ remember the password.
  3. Finally as I mentioned in our application, we actually built our own embedded wallet solution in Metro.exchange (our new app), which will soon be added to THORSwap. This is essentially an enhanced version of Keystore wallets but without needing to upload the JSON file everytime. Metro wallet also supports Passkey (the encryption method) with biometrics also gives you hardware (bound to your device) + 2FA authentication (ie. using mobile device to unlock).

Regardless of which “passkey” you’re referring to, the three wallet solutions I mentioned above are all self-custodial and we don’t store any seeds on servers. So users should be able to export and use another wallet interface if there happens to be bugs. But indeed, Metro wallet is something we’ve built specifically ourselves to address the pain points of managing multichain wallets and interacting smoothly with different types of onchain swap protocols which each have their quirks depending on the chains/methodology of swap execution. Hopefully the issue you’ve heard would be addressed with Metro and we’re quite proud that it supports Zcash seamlessly, we’re also improving support for shielding and other native privacy features too.

Finally, we understand that users don’t always want to use Discord for support, so we’re bringing back in-app support desk (does not require kyc) as well. It’s already live on http://metro.exchange/ and should be updated to THORSwap shortly.

4

I’m not that familiar with passkeys as I don’t use them to avoid these exact kind of situations, but as far as I understand they are unique to each website or app. Meaning a passkey created on Thorswap will only work on Thorswap. So if said passkey can’t sign any transactions on the app, the funds are just locked there without any recovery possible. I’m not aware of ways to extract/export keys from a passkey but if you do please let me know and I will relay the info to the interested.

5

Assuming we’re talking about Passkeys by Exodus here. Then you can definitely sync and back up wallets in settings:

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But we’re getting off topic now, feel free to DM me or ask THORSwap users who might be facing issues to reach out on the support desk on https://metro.exchange/ :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

6

You can make a copy of the passkey which has nothing to do with the actual seed or private key.

Anyway I have told the people concerned to contact you on metro.exchange and will follow up with them.

7

THORSwap team member here! If anyone has any questions feel free to reach out :saluting_face:

8

I think this development had benefits for Thorswap. Did Bitcoin have to pay grants?

9

It definitely had benefits for THORSwap, we’re proud and super glad to have prioritized Zcash support before the recent acceleration of privacy narrative.

Since this is an retroactive grant, we’d appreciated it if the community would recognize our contributions to boosting Zcash adoption onchain. If Bitcoin also had such an amazing grant programme we’d for sure apply as well!