Intro
Hi everyone, firstly, thank you for your continued support. I really appreciate it. If anyone has any feedback or would like to jump on a call to discuss my ongoing work, please reach out. If you’re not following yet, please do - Connaugh 🛡️🎥 (@zkMarketer) / X
My full grant request can be found -
I look forward to discussing my proposal below. Please ask any questions you have.
How did you learn about the Lockbox: Coinholder Retroactive Grants Program?
Through conversations with the Cypherpunk Technologies team.
Requested Grant Amount (USD)
22,500
Category
Media
Project Summary
The strongest arguments for Zcash are buried in hours of podcasts and talks on other people’s channels. I cut them into short, single-argument films built for the feed. These nine films, published over four weeks, reached 82,872 impressions and 29,138 views, with four in five viewers coming from outside my own followers.
Project Description
Overview
Zcash gets a lot of airtime. The people building on it talk about it regularly, and so do respected voices from across crypto and beyond, on Bankless, The Rollup, and most of the big shows in the space. Every one of those conversations puts Zcash in front of a new audience. The trouble is that none of it has a home. The companies working on Zcash rarely produce their own video on a regular cadence, so the best conversations about Zcash happen on other people’s channels. Anyone who wants to understand it has to dig through hours of interviews spread across twenty different YouTube channels to find them.
That’s the gap I work in, and I make two kinds of film for it. The first takes a single podcast or talk and cuts it down to the few minutes that matter most, so a two-hour interview becomes a tight two-minute film. The second is built around a narrative, such as Zcash vs Monero. For these, I pull clips from different people, recorded months apart on different shows, and sequence them so they back each other up. The arguments stay with the people making them. I provide the through-line.
That matters more every month, as AI-generated video fills every feed and people grow wary of anything that looks synthetic. Every argument in my films comes from a real person on camera, saying what they actually said, often alongside others who reached the same conclusion on a different show months apart. For a project whose whole case rests on trust, that’s the most credible format I can give it.
I tag the relevant organisations when I post, so they can share the films as their own. The main Zcash account has done this a number of times, which means the films are starting to act as the ecosystem’s own library rather than just mine.
Because each film is built around a single narrative, I can bring it back whenever that narrative trends again. One film in this application has already been used this way. When the Monero vs Zcash debate flared up again, I reposted my film while the conversation was live and it picked up another 17,000 impressions and 5,000 views.
Since these films went out, I’ve also started cutting trailers and short clips from each new film, which link back to the full version. The films are cut from long interviews, and the clips are cut from the films, so the best moments get distilled a second time and reach people scrolling past. This has taken me from two posts a week to around six most weeks. Six is only the first stage. Every new film gives me more to post, so I expect the rate to keep climbing well past where it is now. This work sits outside this application, but every film covered here can be clipped the same way.
Why the films are short
Each film carries one or two points, told once, properly.
The archive compounds. Crypto content dates fast, whether through protocol changes or shifts in the political climate. When one section of a long film goes stale, the whole film goes with it. A short film making a single point stays publishable for far longer, so every film I make adds to a library I can keep drawing on.
Fragmenting the case widens the reach. Zcash has several stories running at once: the institutional story, the case for apolitical money, the cypherpunk history, what the protocol actually does, and the people behind it. Each one speaks to a different audience. Cutting to the level of a single point lets each audience find the argument aimed at them. It also lets advocates share the exact claim they care about, without asking their followers to sit through a film that’s mostly about something else.
The format is what distribution rewards. Short, fast-paced explainer video is the dominant form outside crypto and thinly served inside it, where most output is either long-form conversation or low-effort promotion. The direction of travel is already visible. A16z’s video over the past six months has moved towards short documentary work at a production standard the rest of the industry hasn’t matched.
Why this is worth funding
The right mix of skills for Zcash. I bring six years of tech marketing to these films, including zero-knowledge cryptography at Mina Foundation and o1Labs and AI agents at Fetch.ai. That background lets me follow the technical case for Zcash and translate it for a general audience. I also live in the space day to day, following the latest podcasts and the conversations inside the Zcash community, so I understand the culture and politics around Zcash as well as the technology. That is how I find the moments worth cutting, often in interviews most people never reach the end of. I pair all of this with the creative craft of research, scripting, editing, and design, so one person carries a film from idea to published post.
Always improving. Every film starts with one question: what is the most compelling story within this Zcash narrative, and how do I tell it so people stop scrolling and stay? I treat each film as a test, keeping what lands and dropping what doesn’t, and I apply the same discipline to the process behind it. I build edit lists directly from word-level transcripts and keep adopting new tools as they arrive. Every efficiency I gain goes back into the quality of the films and how far they travel. The rise in conversion from 21.7% to 35.2% is an early sign of that progress, and the quality rises visibly from one film to the next.
Strong value for money. $2,500 per published film covers work that would normally be split across a researcher, a scriptwriter, an editor, a designer and a social media manager. With no handovers between those roles, nine films went out in four weeks, delivering the two-a-week commitment made in my previous application. I set this rate after community feedback on that application, and it now applies across all my Zcash funding. These nine films total $22,500.
The work has continued. Publishing has carried on since this period. From 14 September, starting with the Zcash and Solana film, my work is funded through a separate ZCG grant, so this application covers only the nine films above. Under that grant, I have started adapting films for TikTok and Instagram. I plan to bring these nine films to those platforms too, refreshing them to my current editing standard first. That work sits outside this application.
Technical Approach (how you did it)
Process
Every film runs the same five stages.
Research. I gather source material from across the ecosystem: podcast appearances, conference talks, engineering explainers, interviews. I log each clip against the claim it supports.
Editorial. I build the narrative before I open the timeline. Claims are threaded so that speakers recorded independently back up one another. I check anything technical against primary sources.
Scripting. Source clips carry the core message; voiceovers are used only when something needs clarifying or context is missing. Everything is meticulously planned to ensure the message comes from the top Zcash voices as concisely and thoroughly as possible.
Production. Editing, sound design, and music in Adobe Premiere Pro. Motion and graphic design in Figma.
Distribution. Published to X, packaged and hooked for that feed specifically.
Tooling and position on AI
Premiere Pro for editing. Figma for design. Claude for research synthesis and script structure.
I use AI at the edges and keep it out of the center. I edit by hand in professional software, deliberately. I am starting to experiment more with AI in my newer videos, but not those in this retroactive grant.
Equipment
Recording and production hardware, including a Shure SM7dB and mixing desk, is mine and self-funded. It is not claimed here.
Time Period of Work Completion
9 videos in total, 2 videos per week over 29 days. 13 August 2026 to 10 September 2026 working full time, weekends and evenings.
Total Budget (USD)
$22,500
Budget Breakdown
Line
Amount
Justification
Compensation
$22,500
Time only, priced per film + research. 9 VIDEOS ($2,500 each)
Technology / Software
$0
Adobe, Figma and AI tooling subscriptions self-funded. Not claimed.
Infrastructure / Hosting
$0
None incurred.
Services / Contractors
$0
Sole producer. No third parties engaged.
Other
$0
Recording and production equipment owned and self-funded. Not claimed.
Total
$22,500
Previous Funding
Yes
Previous Funding Details
I received funding from the last Coinholder vote for 5 videos. These videos continue from my last application.
Other Funding Sources
Yes
Other Funding Sources Details
I have also received funding from ZCG for work dated after this application. That grant is ongoing and totals 24 videos over 3 months.
Success Metrics
Success metrics
Snapshot taken 11 November 2026, 11:00 GMT+0.
Film
Impressions
Views
Likes
Reposts
Replies
Multicoin Capital ‘Zcash Haters’
3,726
1,540
94
11
2
Will McEvoy Entropy Thesis
1,845
525
54
11
5
Zcash + NEAR Intents
2,247
678
45
5
2
Last Week in Zcash
12,809
1,940
76
22
4
A Swiss Vault in your pocket
14,749
4,187
129
29
13
Grayscale ETF + Thesis
1,125
422
24
5
3
Monero vs Zcash
31,947
12,537
377
62
34
Naval - Hedge Against Bitcoin
10,124
5,714
203
33
13
Shielded Pool Growth
4,300
1,595
48
9
0
Total
82,872
29,138
1,050
187
76
Completion rates
Film
Runtime
25%
50%
75%
Finished
Finished (individuals)
Multicoin Capital ‘Zcash Haters’
2:40
10%
7%
5%
4%
61
Will McEvoy Entropy Thesis
2:14
9%
4%
3%
2%
13
Zcash + NEAR Intents
2:01
10%
6%
5%
3%
20
Last Week in Zcash
2:48
9%
6%
5%
4%
76
A Swiss Vault in your pocket
1:31
13%
7%
5%
4%
164
Grayscale ETF + Thesis
2:11
11%
6%
5%
2%
8
Monero vs Zcash
1:22
31%
22%
16%
11%
1,379
Naval - Hedge Against Bitcoin
1:47
19%
11%
9%
6%
343
Shielded Pool Growth
2:10
13%
8%
6%
4%
64
Total
2,128
Performance
The nine films reached 82,872 impressions and 29,138 views, drawing 1,050 likes, 187 reposts and 76 replies. Around 2,130 viewers watched a film through to the end.
More viewers are choosing to watch. Each film averaged around 9,200 impressions, almost identical to the five films in my previous application, yet drew 63% more views per film. The share of impressions turning into views climbed from 21.7% to 35.2%. Five of the nine films beat the best conversion rate among the earlier five. With the top-performing film removed, the rate still sits at 32.6%, so the improvement holds across the whole batch and points to sharper hooks and packaging.
Divisive comparisons travel furthest. The two strongest films argue head-on that Zcash beats a rival: Monero vs Zcash, and Naval’s case for Zcash as a hedge against Bitcoin. Together they account for 63% of the batch’s views and 81% of its complete watches. Monero vs Zcash alone drew 31,947 impressions, more than twice any other film, and 1,379 complete watches, more than the other eight combined. Films like these are divisive: holders of the rival asset push back and Zcash supporters respond. Current platform algorithms reward that debate with reach. The same pattern appeared in the earlier five, where the Zcash vs Bitcoin film had the strongest retention.
Every minute watched carries more. Each film pulls the strongest arguments from interviews and talks that often run to an hour or more, and cuts them down to around two minutes. Two minutes of one of these films gives a viewer more of the case for Zcash than the first ten minutes of the interview it came from.
Who is watching. Four in five viewers (79.9%) did not follow my account, so the films are reaching well beyond my own followers. The largest share of viewers came from the United States (39.3%), followed by Nigeria (5.7%), Canada (4.3%), India (4.2%) and the United Kingdom (3.9%). Nearly three quarters were aged 25 to 54, with the largest groups aged 25 to 34 (30.4%) and 35 to 44 (29.1%). The films are reaching an adult audience in the largest crypto market, with meaningful reach into regions where financial privacy carries real weight.
How this shapes future work. Divisive comparison films will become a regular slot and the main driver of new reach. Technical and ecosystem films will run alongside them, serving the existing community and giving Zcash organisations material to share.