Zcash Community Grants Meeting Minutes 05/25/2026

Community Grants Community Grants Updates
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Grant Dashboard

Zcash Community Grants Committee Google Meet Meeting: May 25, 2026

Attendance:

  • Artkor

  • GGuy

  • Hanh

  • Zerodartz

  • DecentralistDan

  • Alex (FPF resource, notetaker)

Key Takeaways:

Open Grant Proposals

  • Formal Verification of Halo 2 in Lean 4

    • 18-month project to formally verify Zcash’s Orchard protocol and Halo 2 circuits using Lean 4, covering soundness/completeness of five circuit gadgets, protocol-level security properties, and post-quantum migration analysis. All outputs open-source. Requesting $201,600.

      • Remains open while ZCG continues to solicit feedback

  • Feature Branch Testnet and Compatible Developer Tooling

    • Dedicated testnet for NU7-deferred features (ZSA, NSM), starting single-node and expanding to multi-node, synchronized with mainnet changes. Fills the gap left by the main testnet. Requesting $412,410.

      • Gguy: We are going to have a call with them this week to discuss the proposal.

      • Remains open

  • Cypherpunk Policy Dinner

    • Project Glitch requests ZCG to anchor-sponsor the Cypherpunk Policy Dinner (CPD), an invitation-only dinner for ~100 people on October 21, 2026 in Washington DC, explicitly Zcash-branded and limited to Zcash ecosystem co-sponsors, positioned as a high-signal policy advocacy moment the evening before the DC Privacy Summit. Requesting $25,000.

      • Gguy: Given Paul’s track record I believe this will deliver meaningful value and I’d like to see this one approved.

      • Artkor: I believe this is an important area of work and I support approving this proposal.

      • Decentralistdan: Based on Paul’s history of contributions to the ecosystem and the success of ZCG’s support for the previous 2025 grant. I’m going to approve.

      • Hanh: I don’t think the funds should be used to sponsor events that are for convincing authorities to change their opinion on privacy. If it was a free event I think my position would be different. I think the principle is that we should not use ZCG funds for this purpose.

      • Zerodartz: Paul has done great events. For me this one doesn’t seem like the right fit for ZCG to fund. I’m going to decline but I’ll say the event itself will likely be well organized.

      • Approved 3 (Gguy, Artkor, Decentralistdan), Declined 2 (Hanh, Zerodartz)

  • Rore UI engine in rust

    • Rore proposes a hardware-accelerated, GPU-rendered UI framework in pure Rust (via WGPU) designed to replace Electron-based wrappers in Zcash desktop tooling, with a working proof-of-concept demonstrating ~130MB RAM and 1-3% CPU on a 100K row data grid. Requesting $50,000.

      • Gguy: I appreciate that there are some gaps within the Rust ecosystem when it comes to UI engines. I’ve experienced this myself, but unfortunately, this isn’t something that’s within the scope of ZCG’s funding, so we unanimously decline this one.

      • Artkor: Based on our discussion, the realistic assessment of the complexity of the proposed work for a single developer, and the forum feedback from community members, whose input I appreciate, I am not comfortable approving this proposal.

      • Hanh: I also reject. It’s interesting to build something for rust but I don’t believe this benefits the Zcash community directly. It’s far from being production ready anyway. Therefore it’s out of scope. I reject.

      • Zerodartz: It’s too general purpose grant and the benefits don’t seem to be there for Zcash for now. I don’t see the value of having low resources needed for a wallet GUI when the backend uses over 90% of the resources.

      • Decentralistdan: reject as out of scope

      • Declined async

  • Building Zcash’s Web3 Gateway: WalletConnect v2 Integration with BazaarSwap as Flagship dApp

    • This proposal seeks to build a WalletConnect v2 SDK for Zcash, enabling standardized wallet-to-dApp connectivity across all address types (transparent, Sapling, Orchard, Unified Addresses), with Zodl, Brave, and Vultisig as initial integration targets. Requesting $375,000.

      • Artkor: WalletСonnect functionality could be useful and convenient for Zcash users. However, I would have more confidence approving this type of work if the initiative came from experienced developers of a dedicated Zcash wallet for web interfaces. In its current form, I am not comfortable approving this proposal.

      • Zerodartz: I also don’t see much community interest in this right now and otherwise it might be useful but maybe in the future when there’s more to do with Zcash in DeFi ecosystems.

      • Hanh: There are two things about this proposal: One is the bazaar which is an aggregator of swap providers/liquidity providers. I think that this is not something that at this moment is really needed. There are some other routing solutions embedded in wallets. The need is not there in my opinion. And the second thing is the wallet connect v2 integration. There are two approaches. One is to use an existing wallet and add wallet connect SDK which is not so complicated considering that there are SDK for most of the languages out there. But their approach was to basically create a new wallet from scratch. This is not the right approach and the cost is very large because of that. When we take these two into consideration this brings us to $375,000 and I think the value to the community is not there.

      • Gguy: I agree. Without an end to end existing wallet scenario I don’t think we should fund this grant.

      • Hanh: If you want to do this sort of stuff you shouldn’t rebuild from scratch. There’s a lot of things that are out there already.

      • Decentralistdan: I would like to see this work come out of an already established Zcash wallet doing the integration

      • Declined

  • BLINK: Bluetooth-Powered, Privacy-Preserving Payment Infrastructure for Emerging Markets

    • Applicant proposes to integrate shielded ZEC payments into their existing live mobile payment app (iOS/Android), which has processed ~$8M in transaction volume across Base, Stellar, and Solana, adding BLE-based payment discovery, shielded ZEC as a native asset, and programmatic ZEC-to-NGN settlement for merchants in Nigeria. Requesting $100,000.

      • Artkor: I was not able to verify the adoption metrics claimed in the proposal, and the product appears to be at a very early stage. I reject this proposal.

      • Hanh: I’m also questioning the technical approach which is to use bluetooth for something payment related considering that’s not very safe. It’s a range technology and people can connect to your device and at least know that you are using it. I think that using QR codes and camera is simpler and also safer and that’s a standard for all wallets. I don’t see why switching to Bluetooth brings anything to the table.

      • Gguy: I agree, bluetooth is not a standard method for payment systems like this. There’s are number of reasons for that, which is why I rejected this application.

      • Zerodartz: There’s a reason most payment systems use either QR codes or NFC and not bluetooth. It’s security, speed and user experience. Also this service seems too new to be trusted quite yet. Reject from me.

      • Declined

  • Tachyon-Lite

    • Tachyon-Lite proposes a forward-looking light-client SDK for shielded Zcash, delivering a Rust SDK, WASM/JavaScript bindings, a privacy-safe compact sync server (no viewing keys server-side), and a reference web wallet — positioned as a developer-friendly foundation for future Tachyon/Ragu-style proof-carrying sync. Requesting $40,000.

      • Hanh: I think this one tries to ride the popularity of Tachyon but it’s actually unrelated. There are very few details about how it is done mathematically and technically. It seems like it was mostly AI generated. A lot of words are repeated without clarification. Honestly, I don’t think it works because it is all mocked. When Tachyon gets closer, it will make more sense.

      • Declined async

  • Zcash CIS Educational Media Initiative 2026

    • Pro Blockchain Media proposes a 3-month Russian-language Zcash educational content initiative producing articles, Telegram posts, livestream references, and one longer-form podcast/video, distributed to their claimed 500,000+ follower audience across platforms. Requesting $9,000.

      • Artkor: I like the level of detail in the team’s weekly reports from the past months, as well as the apparent engagement in their Telegram channel. I support continuing this proposal, subject to any specific feedback from the committee or community. I also encourage the community to join to suggest topics for the ProBlockchain team that can help explain Zcash to a broader audience.

      • Zerodartz: They’ve reported good numbers. The content is there, but I’m not sure if the quality is exactly what I expected. There’s a lot of AI use, which I’m not a big fan of. So, I’m unsure.

      • Gguy: I reject this one. I don’t see the value and I’m unsure about the value of the audience that watches this content.

      • Decentralistdan: It’s also hard for me to evaluate. I’m inclined to support Artkor’s opinion based on the fact that he has worked closely with them to a degree. But I also am not convinced that this is broadly what the numbers are, what they’re saying and broadly impactful beyond maybe their small community that is potentially not as big as they are telling us or showing. So, I’m good to wait. But if we’re voting today, I would be a reject as well.

      • Artkor: I prefer voting today because I think we won’t change our decisions.

      • Zerodartz: I will reject based on today’s meeting.

      • Declined 3 (Gguy, Zerodartz, Decentralistdan), Approved 2 (Hanh, Artkor)

  • Incrypted Educational content in CIS region

    • Incrypted proposes a one-time CIS-focused Zcash educational campaign: two localized articles (Ukrainian and Russian) and one AMA session, distributed across their YouTube, website, Telegram, and Discord channels. Requesting $5,000.

      • Gguy: We’ll discuss with this team if they are able to provide video content as part of their deliverables.

      • Remains open

  • Zcash Name Service

    • ZcashNames requests a forward grant to harden the trust model of their live ZNS beta, replacing keypair-based authorization with TEE-hosted minting, removing front-end key exposure, and producing on-chain cryptographic proofs of name bindings verifiable without trusting the resolver — delivered across a whitepaper, orchard fork, TEE mint, resolver, verification crate, SDKs, external audit, and mainnet launch. Requesting $92,200.

      • Artkor: I like the core idea of Zcash Name Service, because human-readable names could significantly improve Zcash payment UX without exposing balances or transaction history. It is also worth noting that ZNS has already gained meaningful attention, largely thanks to this team’s activity and the involvement of well-known figures in the crypto industry. At the same time, I still do not fully understand whether this can become a self-sustaining, self-funded model. I would also like to see a clear signal from the Zodl team on whether they intend to support ZNS, and in what form. For me, wallet support and alignment across the community are essential factors before making the right funding decision.

      • Gguy: This is only a few days old. I’d like to see additional community feedback regarding this proposal.

      • Zerodartz: The idea is good overall, and Zcash community seems to love it also so far. I’m concerned with the security aspects of it. For example if the address you tie to your name gets changed by bad actors without you realizing there will be problems.

      • Remains open

  • Zcash MCP Server For AI Agent Integration

    • This proposal requests a forward grant to build a production-ready MCP server enabling AI agents to interact with Zcash — checking balances, generating addresses, constructing shielded transactions, and managing wallets — via a TypeScript MCP interface backed by a Rust wallet engine, installable via npm with no full node required. Requesting $20,000.

      • Gguy: While AI is becoming more useful I don’t think an MCP server is the right tooling to provide AI payment solutions.

      • Hanh: It’s doable now. The tools are there. It’s already done, there is no reason to do a grant for a product that already exists.

      • Declined

  • Zcash Arabia (May to September 2026)

    • Applicant proposes to scale an existing Arabic-language Zcash education and community initiative across the MENA region, expanding educational content, user onboarding, and developer engagement for Arabic-speaking audiences. Requesting $20,000.

      • Artkor: I think we all appreciate the effort that Zcash Arabia has put in during their trial period. However, the committee still has concerns about whether continuing the grant is justified, particularly around the transparency of the team structure and whether the reported activity demonstrates enough real community engagement to support further funding at the requested level. Given these concerns and since the applicant continued the work in May, I would suggest that that committee consider approving only one month of this proposal.

      • Hanh: What do you mean by that? So you’re basically kind of giving them a bonus for good work, but you don’t want them to continue, right?

      • Artkor: Only May because today is the 25th of May and Zcash Arabia is doing work this month. Work that’s been completed.

      • Hanh: Maybe? What is important in the future is that we phrase the request in a way that there is no misunderstanding when it comes to reporting. Because honestly I don’t think we have the bandwidth to review one by one all these region specific community efforts. If they expect us to do that then they’re going to get disappointed and raise these issues. For me the guy jumped the gun, he did more work than than we asked him to but he didn’t do exactly the work that we asked him to. Now he’s saying I’ve done all this stuff, why don’t you guys recognize my good work. Well, I just don’t have the time to see and judge whether it’s good work or not when I don’t even understand the language. Maybe because it’s the first guy then we can give him like this one month as you say of extension. But in my opinion, we all don’t have to because we never agreed to this. I just don’t want this guy to come back and say that “okay I’m going to do more work on my own” and then say that “you guys are unfair because you approve some other team that is doing the same thing”.

      • Artkor: First milestone as retroactive.

      • Zerodartz: I’m ok to approve one month of work in May. My concern with this proposal is they do everything online and other similar smaller communities usually start doing also real life events which I think is more effective and the way to go in the future. At this budget level the online impact they have had is fine, but not good enough anymore in 2026 in my view. Hanh: Ok so this guy, we had another submission before and we accepted that one and we paid that one and that’s over and now this is a new one where he’s going for a much bigger request. Since the new one is going from May to September and you’re saying that May is nearly over, you want to pay him the May portion. Correct?

      • Decentralistdan: I agree. Pay out may(M1)

      • Gguy: I agree as well. We reject all future work from this team but appreciate the work for milestone 1 and will pay out accordingly.

      • Approved for $4,000, milestone 1 only

  • Khalani: Reducing ZEC Cross-Chain Dependency with a Second Intent-Based Rail

    • Khalani proposes to build a second independent cross-chain intent provider for transparent ZEC, reducing ecosystem dependency on NEAR Intents as the sole production-grade cross-chain rail, using intent-based settlement with a permissionless solver market, with mainnet launch targeted at or shortly after June 1. Requesting $45,000.

      • Artkor: At this stage the Zcash community already has a more appropriate fair funding path for initiative of this kind; large integrations can be built, tested with users and then considered for retroactive community funding if they prove valuable. I would encourage applicants to consider that path.

      • Hanh: There is clearly a lot of money to be made doing this kind of stuff. If he’s successful, if he manages to get enough liquidity, then he’s going to get his money back easily. If not, then there’s no point in doing this. So just follow the other teams who have done similar projects. Intent, Maya, etc. Then apply for a retroactive grant.

      • Declined

  • Zcash Privacy Capsule

    • Applicant proposes a client-side encrypted vault built on Zcash combining three workflows: proof-of-existence timestamping via Zcash memo anchoring, encrypted sealed capsules with client-side keys, and time-based release/deadman switch mechanisms — targeting journalists, lawyers, compliance teams, and researchers. Requesting $46,400.

      • Remains open

  • Cross-Implementation ZIP Conformance Test Suite

    • Applicant requests a 6-month grant for two engineers to build a public cross-implementation conformance test suite covering five core ZIPs (ZIP-244 sighash, ZIP-225 wire format, ZIP-32 HD derivation, ZIP-321 payment URIs, ZIP-316 Unified Addresses), delivering ≥5,000 test vectors, cleanroom C++ and Rust implementations for independent cross-checking, multi-language bindings (Rust, Go, JavaScript, Python), and spec audit notes documenting discovered ambiguities. Requesting $45,000.

      • Remains open

  • Zcash Shielded-Identity Adapter

    • Applicant proposes a Rust adapter crate that derives sovereign AI memory identity from a Zcash z-address holder’s shielded key chain, enabling Zcash keys to anchor encrypted AI memory cells in the SAIHM protocol without requiring on-chain transactions. Requesting $50,000.

      • Remains open
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