Retroactive Grant Application — ZODL Q1 2026 Core Protocol Development

Community Grants
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Hi everyone — ZODL (Zcash Open Development Lab) has submitted a retroactive grant application to the Coinholder-Directed Retroactive Grants Program for core Zcash protocol work completed in Q1 2026.

To be clear up front about scope: this application covers core protocol work only — librustzcash, the Zallet wallet backend, the Zcash mobile SDKs, ZIP authoring and review, R&D, and the Sprout vulnerability response. Development of the Zodl mobile wallet app is funded separately by the app’s in-app swap fees and is not part of this request.

GitHub proposal: Retroactive Grant Application - ZODL Q1 2026 Core Protocol Development · Issue #33 · Financial-Privacy-Foundation/ZcashCoinholderGrantsProgram · GitHub

Requested amount: $818,438

What this funds (already delivered, Q1 2026):

  • librustzcash & Zcash SDKs — note commitment tree bugfixes, transparent coin tracking (P2PKH/P2SH), note-locking, height-bounded chain truncation, rewind-to-chain-state APIs for the Android and iOS SDKs, and the iOS SDK/FFI reunification.
  • Zallet — progress toward the alpha.4 release, PCZT generalization, `z_getbalances`, P2SH redeem script handling, and the zcashd RPC integration-testing repository.
  • ZIPs — ZIP 316 Revision 2 completed, ZIP 48 OVK derivation scheme shipped, ZIP 231 spec updated post-audit, ongoing editor work on ZIP 248.
  • R&D — Orchard Quantum Recoverability (presented at Zcash Engineering Office Hours), shielded voting protocol review, Coinholder Polling mechanism feedback, Poseidon2 cryptanalysis review, PIR ZIP review, and removal of a centralization point in zcashd.
  • Sprout pool verification vulnerability — ZODL engineers wrote and reviewed the patch for the critical zcashd Sprout verification bug disclosed March 23, coordinated deployment with the major mining pools, and shipped the fix as zcashd v6.12.0 on March 31.

More context: Additional details can be found in the full GitHub application. Also, @joshs weekly forum updates throughout Q1 cover this work in detail:

A note on funding: ZODL’s recent seed round was raised to drive growth of user adoption — the Zodl wallet, the user base, and go-to-market work. Core protocol stewardship is a public good that doesn’t generate investor returns, and we believe it should continue to be funded by the coinholder community whose network is being maintained, as it was under the prior Dev Fund model.

Happy to answer any questions or go deeper on any of the above. Thank you for your consideration.

ZODL Team

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Hi ZODL team! First off, thank you for the detailed application and for all the hard work this quarter, including the rapid response to the Sprout vulnerability. The community really appreciates your continued stewardship of the protocol.

I just want to make sure I’m understanding the compensation breakdown correctly. The application requests $806,918 for Q1. Since ZODL has separate funding for the wallet app, I’m assuming that management, HR, and admin overhead (as well as Tony and Josh’s time, since they aren’t listed in the justification) are subsidised by the business side.

If my assumption is right and this budget is strictly for the 6 core engineers listed, the math works out to an average of roughly $134,486 per engineer for the quarter, or an average annualized cost of about $538,000 per person.

Could you clarify if this is the correct way to look at it, or if that $807k figure actually includes other overhead, leadership time, or administrative costs not explicitly listed?

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Hi team,

I think it would be helpful to add some context about the previous Lockbox retroactive grant application related to ECC / Bootstrap, since it involved work by some of the contributors now continuing core protocol development through ZODL.

As I understand it, that application was approved by coinholders, and I personally voted in favor of it. However, after the organizational changes that led to the formation of ZODL, the disbursement was put on hold and later vetoed by key-holder organizations.

My understanding is that the team therefore did not actually receive the previously approved Lockbox funding. If I am missing any important details about the final outcome, I would appreciate clarification. Thanks.

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Hey Gguy, appreciate the question.

First, to reiterate: the proposed amount strictly covers direct core engineering expenses. No G&A, no marketing, no legal or professional fees, no HR, and none of my or Josh’s time. The scope of what we’re requesting is intentionally narrow.

That said, we’d encourage the community to weigh deliverables and value alongside cost when evaluating the proposal — though in our case, the requested amount does map directly to actual costs incurred.

For standard confidentiality reasons, we don’t publicly disclose employee or contractor compensation. What I can say is that we incurred some one-time costs tied to the ECC to ZODL transition, and the figure reflects our best attempt at proper attribution.

Happy to answer any follow-ups.

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Your understanding is correct. The previously approved grant was vetoed and no funds were ever disbursed from the lockbox for that work.

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