Zcash Adoption Through Targeted Reddit Marketing

Community Grants Applications
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Team

Applicant
Kevan Shah (@skevan2)

Team Members

  • Kevan Shah – Lead Strategist & Campaign Manager

  • Reddit Marketing Squad (10 members) – Daily engagement, posting, and reporting

Project Pitch

Launch a six-month Reddit marketing campaign that systematically grows Zcash’s presence beyond its existing community by targeting token holders, entrepreneurs, and developers across crypto, DeFi, and privacy-related subreddits.

Financial Request: $60,000 USD (6 months at $10,000/month)

Applicant Background

Kevan Shah is a Web3 marketer and entrepreneur with 8+ years of experience in marketing and 5+ years of Web3 & Reddit-specific growth expertise.

  • Partnered with 250+ Web3 startups on marketing and community campaigns.

  • Founder of RedditLeadGen.com, a SaaS for Reddit lead generation and growth.

  • Founder of Hangryfeed.com, a Web3 marketing agency.

  • Built and scaled multiple SaaS products, bringing together deep execution skills in growth, content, and community.

  • Kevan Has been part of Zcash Community for many years and contributed in Zcash Media’s first launch.

Kevan specializes in designing authentic Reddit marketing campaigns that create sustainable, compounding visibility through SEO, AI dataset inclusion, and long-lasting content on high-traffic subreddits.

Description of Problem or Opportunity

Challenges today:

  • Limited awareness: Zcash remains siloed; discussions rarely reach new audiences.

  • Misconceptions: Privacy coins are often associated with scams or darknet use.

  • Competitive noise: Monero, Bitcoin, Ethereum L2s dominate cross-ecosystem discourse.

Opportunity:

  • Position Zcash as the default privacy-first chain in discussions about payments, privacy, and decentralization.

  • Reach 900,000+ targeted users across six months, including token holders, entrepreneurs, and developers outside the Zcash community.

  • Ensure Zcash is consistently represented in key narratives around Web3 infrastructure.

Why Now

  1. Narrative moment: The privacy and compliance conversation in crypto is accelerating; Zcash must be visible to shape the narrative before competitors capture it.

  2. AI amplification: Reddit is a training ground for LLMs like ChatGPT and Perplexity — meaning posts/comments today will surface in AI answers tomorrow.

  3. SEO compounding: Content placed now will keep ranking for months/years, driving long-tail organic traffic for ZEC.

  4. Ecosystem growth: As new entrepreneurs and developers enter Web3 in 2024–25, Zcash must be part of their discovery funnel.

Proposed Solution

Campaign Deliverables (per month):

  • 3,000 comments targeting relevant discussions (≈900,000 users targeted over 6 months).

  • 200–300 posts in high-value subreddits across crypto, DeFi, and privacy.

  • Reports every 2 months (3 in total), reviewing activity, impact, and recommendations.

Execution:

  • Comments/posts will educate, not shill, aligning with community norms.

  • Key focus on Zcash technology narrative (privacy, shielded transactions, compliance potential).

  • Collaboration with Zcash ecosystem leaders before milestones to review narrative, ensure alignment, and maintain message quality.

Long-Term Impact

  • SEO Visibility: Evergreen Reddit posts/comments rank highly on Google.

  • AI Citations: Zcash messaging enters LLM datasets → ZEC referenced in AI responses across the web.

  • Community Growth: Exposure to new builders and token holders, not just existing Zcash members.

  • Narrative Strength: Counters negative misconceptions, establishing ZEC as a legitimate privacy-first solution in mainstream discussions.

Budget

Total Request: $60,000 USD (6 months at $10,000/month)

  • $5,000/month → compensation (Kevan + team of 10)

  • $1,000/month → tools, reporting, and design support

  • $4000/month → paid access to communities

Payment Structure:

  • Funding is milestone-based, not fully upfront.

  • At each milestone (every 2 months), deliverables are reviewed with Zcash ecosystem leadership and grants committee before proceeding to the next stage.

  • Upfront payment is required before each milestone begins.

Schedule and Milestones

Milestones:

  • Months 1–2: 6,000 comments, 200+ posts → Report 1 (review + approval with Zcash leadership)

  • Months 3–4: 6,000 comments, 300+ posts → Report 2 (review + approval with Zcash leadership)

  • Months 5–6: 6,000 comments, 300+ posts → Report 3 (review + approval with Zcash leadership)

Total: 18,000 comments, 800+ posts

Evaluation Plan

  • Users targeted: 900,000+ through comments

  • Posts created: 120–240 across high-value communities

  • SEO & AI impact: ZEC content ranking in Google and surfacing in AI tools

  • Narrative review: Every milestone reviewed with ecosystem leaders for alignment

  • Community expansion: More Crypto community, token holders, and developers exposed to ZEC

Conflict of Interest

No conflicts. Kevan operates independently and is not part of Zcash Foundation or ZCG decision-making bodies.

Happy to answer any questions.

1 Like
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Hi @skevan2, are you asking for community feedback on your grant idea or are you officially submitting a grant application to ZCG? If you are submitting a grant request to ZCG please submit it here and add a comment with a link to this post. If you are just asking for feedback on your idea then no action needed.

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submitting here.

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This thread is also Community Grants but not Applications…

TLDR:
No ZCG $60k for reddit marketing!

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Reddit is now a publicly traded social media company that has fought against open standards and carries out anti-privacy practices via network monitoring (censorship of consumers), is a well known space for serious astro turfing (not human-driven discourse: propaganda), top down content moderation (censorship of creators) inspired by government decrees, etc etc etc etc

Having a zec presence on any given social media is a good idea, but IMO there probably should be about one person covering all of them, just to point the way to our own community’s resources and platforms.

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tdlr: reddit has issues, but still has high value users - AI chatbots get their content from reddit 40% of time and it has huge crypto/privacy community.

Full response:

Reddit has problems. Centralized control. Surveillance. Heavy moderation. Astroturfing. These concerns are valid.

this is my tweet: https://x.com/K1_shah/status/1881617456818688130

But the goal is not to replace Zcash community platforms. The goal is to use Reddit as an on-ramp to reach people who have never seen ZEC.

why I think it’s still important:

  • Millions of crypto and privacy discussions happen on Reddit every month.

  • Developers, founders, and investors outside of Zcash use Reddit daily.

  • Without presence there, Zcash loses ground to competitors who are active and visible.

The work is focused on:

  • Engaging in non-Zcash subreddits like privacy, finance, security, and entrepreneurship.

  • Explaining Zcash technology clearly and comparing it with alternatives.

  • Redirecting users to Zcash forums, wallets, and shielded channels.

  • Avoiding spam. Comments and posts will be high-signal, not filler.

One person cannot cover all social platforms effectively. Reddit requires structured, consistent, and narrative-driven work. This is how new users start to take Zcash seriously.

This proposal is about expanding reach and then moving people toward Zcash’s privacy-first spaces. Not about propping up Reddit.

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Thank you for your submission. After consideration from ZCG and sufficient time for the community to provide feedback on the forum, the committee has decided to reject this proposal.

The committee appreciates your grant submission efforts and encourages you to continue as an active member of the Zcash community going forward!

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Thank you for consideration.