The ZEC offramp problem

[joshs]

I’m connected with quite a few people that want to use ZEC (or BTC), but cannot because they have no offramp in their country that would allow them to exchange ZEC for the local fiat currency. For example, there are no exchanges that I’m aware of in India that allow for conversion to INR. In other cases around the world, some potential ZEC users are under authoritarian regimes that pose a safety risk. In another example, before the Taliban, many in Afghanistan were able to use a physical OTC location, but that was since closed and the proprietor arrested, killing the use of ZEC for remits into that location.

This is the danger with “Operation Chokepoint 2.0” in the US, where limiting access to traditional banking ahead of circular economies, effectively kills local crypto utility.

Is anyone here aware of solutions that exist, or could exist, that would allow someone to safely and confidentially receive ZEC and exchange it if no exchange (or atm) is available, and/or where using a regulated service may be a security risk?

[pitmutt]

This is a problem I have experienced myself with my family in Southamerica. Sure, I can send them ZEC but there’s very little they can do with it over there and they can’t swap it for fiat.

To get around this problem, you need a trustless way to swap peer-to-peer, basically Bisq but on Zcash. It would still require a lot of OpSec on repressive regimes.

There is also the additional challenge that, at least at first, the most likely use case will be remittances, so you are likely to have an imbalance between buyers and sellers. If everyone is trying to off-ramp, you need an informal market-maker, someone with the resources to buy all that ZEC for the local fiat and some level of access to the international market where that ZEC can be arbitraged to keep the cycle going.

[januszgrze]

@pitmutt

To get around this problem, you need a trustless way to swap peer-to-peer, basically Bisq but on Zcash. It would still require a lot of OpSec on repressive regimes.

Bisq supports Zcash iirc I’ll confirm this soon.

But totally agree with your and @joshs’s comments here.

What I’m finding in my initial non-kyc research is that the only plausible way to use ZEC in these situations is in an agorist fashion. But, that requires a lot of user education, simultaneous merchant + peer to peer adoption, so it’s very difficult to coordinate.

I’m not really confident on on/off ramps the more I dive into it. This isn’t a Zcash problem though, it’s an issue in the entire digital cash space.

[JoakimEQ]

I don’t think the Zcash support is there yet. The issue was never commented on: Add Zcash shielded z-address support · Issue #4941 · bisq-network/bisq · GitHub

There was recent discussion about adding researching stablecoins on Zcash, which might also help.

I think there is another way out of this which is via bridging. I have understood that some of the work started with ZSAs means we can start having support for bridged assets, thus enabling (trusted) two-way bridges to operate. We would still need to have someone build this though.

Additionally, there is work being done such as the ZEC.d bridge which would allow offramping via AVAX.

All in all its clearly a huge problem, and we should have multiple projects this issue.

[pitmutt]

@januszgrze

Bisq supports Zcash iirc I’ll confirm this soon

Transparent ZEC was a payment option when I tried Bisq last (a couple of years ago), it may have changed.

But the whole escrow transaction is done on the Bitcoin chain, for the world to see. I can’t find the link, but I believe it was last year that the US government sued a man for “running an unlicensed exchange” because he had traded a large amount of BTC through Bisq over the years.

The idea of Bisq, a decentralized, peer-to-peer exchange, is brilliant. Building it on top of Bitcoin, not so much. Though I do respect the technical achievement of what amounts to a smart contract being built on top of Bitcoin.

[mrkit2u]

Airtm.com facilitates peer-to-peer exchanges and supports Zcash, useful for up to $1000 USD at a time. Fees are $$$, and the process is cumbersome, but it gets the job done. It is based in Mexico and is used widely in Latam. Most of the peers speak Spanish as their primary language.

[joshs]

It seemed like they were very active for a while but haven’t heard much recently. I’m glad to hear they are still an option.

[zydeco1]

This doesn’t solve your international offramp issues, but for US and related countries it seems the only thing crypto owners actually use as off ramp is gift cards. Cake wallet has this function for Monero users. Can @hanh or others include the same gift card “Zcash pay” function in zcash wallets?

[earthrise]

I don’t have any good ideas but I know that some governments suffering from bad inflation try to fix their exchange rate with USD, and a black market emerges for trading USD at a market price. Maybe we could learn something from how those channels work and organize themselves to enable something similar with ZEC.

[lisabeyy]

looks like we have a new private p2p off-ramp available for Zcash zec.loofta.xyz

[lisa001]

this is part of the problems we are tackling in our continent through obscura labs and zecfiat.

Obscura Labs: An independent Non- US Organisation

Today, I’m excited to formally introduce Obscura Labs, an independent non-US organization registered in Nigeria with a strategic focus on Africa and emerging markets. Obscura Labs was created to build infrastructure, tools, and practical adoption pathways that strengthen the accessibility, utility, and long-term resilience of the Zcash ecosystem across Africa. My journey with Zcash began years ago through community building, education, and advocacy. What started as a personal interest in priva…

[zctocash]

One more option for the list: ZcashToCash is now live. It provides non-custodial, peer-to-peer ZEC-to-fiat cash-out across 100+ geographies and six fiat apps, with ZEC released only after the fiat payment is verified. Feedback from anyone trying a real cash-out would be very useful.

[Anzus_GemWallet]

This looks useful, especially for users who already hold ZEC in different wallet types. What Zcash address or transaction types does the deposit flow support—transparent, Unified, or shielded only?

Gem Wallet currently supports transparent ZEC transactions, so confirming whether transparent deposits are accepted would help determine whether Gem users can access the service. It would also be helpful to show the supported address type, minimum amount, fees, expected completion time, and refund process before a trade begins.

[Michae2xl]

@joshs asked this in 2023, with India as the first example. Closing the loop: that case now has an answer, and it comes from connecting two things that already worked but had never been wired together.

0xramp.app is a live non-custodial ramp where any supported crypto converts into any available local fiat, both directions. ZEC is the pinned default. Under the hood, it connects P2P.me, a P2P merchant protocol that owns the fiat leg with no KYC within base limits and zero-knowledge verification above them, with NEAR Intents, which owns the cross-chain conversion. Each solved half of the problem. Nobody had connected them into fiat in, fiat out, for any asset. That was the gap: everything else stopped at crypto-to-crypto.

P2P.me whitelisted 0xramp as an integrator, so this does not start cold: the network’s ~30,000 accounts, with their limits and reputation already on-chain, work here from day one, on both sides of the trade.

Live today: INR via UPI, BRL via Pix, IDR via QRIS, ARS via alias, VEN via Pago Movil, five more corridors in alpha. About six minutes end-to-end, roughly 3.2% total cost, five-dollar minimum, plus 0.03% invested in solutions like that, according to ZCG history.

The personal part: I have used P2P for over a year to off-ramp. Last week, for the first time in almost five years in this ecosystem, I bought ZEC p2p, privately, with my own local currency. It was my own pain. It is solved and operating.

The deeper layer is social. Cash was always two people and an exchange, with no platform in between. Informal money changers ran on that for centuries, limited only by how far personal reputation could travel. Putting reputation on-chain removes that limit: strangers trade like neighbors, at internet scale. And it works as payment, not only as an exit: a ZEC holder pays any Pix or UPI merchant by entering the merchant’s key, and the merchant receives local money in seconds without ever touching crypto. Emerging economies first, because that is where cash culture is alive, and banking access is conditional, but the pattern is universal.

[Michae2xl]

@vinibarbosa

Onwards

Onwards!!!