Zcash Community Grants Meeting Minutes 10/13/2025

Community Grants Community Grants Updates
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Grants Dashboard**

Zcash Community Grants Committee Google Meet Meeting: October 13, 2025**

[Minutes taken by FPF]

Attendance:

  • Artkor

  • GGuy

  • Jason

  • Zerodartz

  • Decentralistdan

  • Alex (FPF resource, notetaker)

Key Takeaways:

Open Grant Proposals

  • Zcash YouTube Promotional Videos

    • The applicant proposes to create a series of daily YouTube videos to increase awareness and enthusiasm for the Zcash (ZEC) token and community. Drawing on experience successfully building audiences around other topics—with over 796,000 total views and 3,190 subscribers—the creator aims to leverage YouTube’s algorithm through consistent, engaging content that makes Zcash more visible and appealing to existing crypto users and newcomers alike. The project addresses a current gap in Zcash-related media, where available content fails to inspire investment or participation, by using an energetic and relatable approach to foster camaraderie within the community and expand Zcash’s reach. Applicant is requesting $15,613.

      • Jason: This was the one that we previously rejected. He slimmed down the ask and resubmitted. What does everybody think on this one?

      • Gguy: I don’t think this meets the mark for us and I’m happy to reject.

      • Decentralistdan : Reject. This grant is not the right fit at the moment & out of scope for funding. But I would like to see this grantee continue making content and engage with the community.

      • Artkor: I reject this grant because Zcash is already getting a huge amount of organic marketing attention. The project doesn’t look relevant at the moment since we’re seeing strong visibility from major influencer and marketing channels.

      • Jason: I’ll echo what Artkor said. From my perspective price drives sentiment and we’re seeing that with increased engagement and content creation. There’s a lot of high quality stuff that’s being produced right now and I think it would set a bad precedent to cherrypick and fund certain projects that apply for grants. I just don’t think it’s necessary; organic marketing should flourish at a time like this.

      • Zerodarz: I agree and while I think he’s doing a great job with the videos on his channel. It doesn’t make sense for us to approve this grant at this point in time.

      • Rejected.

  • ZeWIF Error Handling

    • This proposal seeks retroactive funding for work completed to update the ZeWIF and related Blockchain Commons crates by replacing the anyhow dependency with thiserror, enabling more precise and programmatically accessible error handling across the stack. At the request of ECC’s Kris Nuttycombe, the team refactored ten foundational libraries—four of which directly support the ZeWIF ecosystem (including zewif, zewif-zcashd, zewif-zingo, and zmigrate)—to implement structured, typed errors that improve interoperability, debugging, and internationalization. Delivered on September 18, this work enhances maintainability and prepares ZeWIF for integration into future Zcash infrastructure as part of zcashd deprecation efforts. Although the prior ZeWIF maintenance grant was not approved, the updates were completed unfunded, and the applicants now seek ZCG support to reimburse this essential contribution to the Zcash developer ecosystem. Applicant is requesting $4,500.

      • † Gguy: We’re going to approve this and we don’t expect this to require any extra work and if it does we’d like to have a conversation before any future grants are submitted or retroactively funded efforts are started.

      • Approved.

  • Zcash Awareness Campaign on Snapchat

    • This three-month project will introduce Zcash to a young, highly engaged audience on Snapchat—a major social platform largely overlooked by the crypto community. Leveraging over five years of content-creation experience and a Snapscore exceeding 200,000, the creator will use storytelling, visuals, and interactive tools to make Zcash’s privacy-preserving technology accessible and relatable. The initiative will include a custom Zcash-themed AR filter, premium Snap Ads, and educational stories designed to raise awareness, spark curiosity, and drive users toward Zcash resources and communities. By meeting Gen Z and Millennial audiences where they already are, this project aims to expand Zcash’s visibility, foster understanding of privacy-focused innovation, and build a lasting bridge between Zcash and a new generation of digital-native users. Applicant is requesting $13,500.

      • Jason: Is it safe to say everything we said about the YouTube grant applies here? Is there anything more to say?

      • Gguy: I don’t think these sorts of grants are needed right now.

      • Zerodartz: Yeah, we haven’t seen any community feedback and the numbers and budget don’t match the expected possible reach in my view. Reject.

      • Artkor: I reject for the same reasons as the YouTube proposal.

      • Dan. Agreed, reject on same basis as Zcash YouTube Promotional Videos grant.

      • Rejected.

  • Zcash React Native

    • This proposal funds the development of zcash-rn, a full-featured, open-source React Native SDK designed to make building shielded, privacy-first mobile apps on Zcash fast, intuitive, and developer-friendly. Built using a modern JSI-Native architecture that bypasses React Native’s legacy bridge, zcash-rn will directly integrate Rust’s core Zcash libraries for high performance and seamless functionality. The SDK will include four modular packages—@zcash-rn/core, @zcash-rn/hooks, @zcash-rn/ui-kit, and @zcash-rn/utils—providing developers with everything from low-level Zcash logic to ready-to-use React hooks and UI components. By addressing the critical gap in mobile development tools, this project will empower the global React Native community to easily build secure, shielded-first Zcash applications, expanding ZEC’s real-world usability and adoption. Applicant is requesting $79,200.

      • Gguy: Still investigating this one. We’ve been talking to Pacu about providers in the ecosystem that are using React Native and we need to learn more about what the transition path looks like from classic React Native.

      • Remains open.

  • Coin Voting: Maintenance & Improvements

    • This proposal funds one year of maintenance and user experience improvements for the Zcash Coin Voting System, ensuring it remains reliable, accessible, and scalable as coin-weighted voting becomes more central to Zcash governance. Building on lessons from prior elections, the project will overhaul the user-facing applications to simplify voting for both coin holders and organizers while preserving the core protocol logic. Key enhancements include streamlined multi-question polling, easier deployment of multiple voting authorities, removal of seed setup friction, and fixes for bugs affecting voter access. In addition, a new Rust crate will be developed to enable third-party developers to build their own compatible voting clients, strengthening the ecosystem’s transparency and participation tools. Applicant is requesting $314,000.

      • Jason: I’m going to reach out to Hahn to get a little bit more detail about his milestones and how he wants to structure this grant. I’ll follow up with him this week.

      • Remains open.

  • Zingo Labs Represents Zcash at Edge City Patagonia

    • Zingo Labs seeks $77,174.65 USD for a 35-day initiative (October 18–November 22, 2025) to represent Zcash at Edge City Patagonia and DevConnect Buenos Aires, expanding awareness, collaboration, and technical capability. The project will complete a key recovery upgrade to the ZExCavator tool, enabling restoration of misplaced ZEC from complex multi-key transactions—an issue affecting users of early Zcash wallets. Through direct participation in these major Latin American crypto events, Zingo Labs will connect Zcash’s technical advancements with real-world engagement by hosting developers, onboarding new contributors, and strengthening Zcash’s presence in Argentina’s privacy-focused ecosystem.

      • Gguy: With the current interest in the Zcash ecosystem I think there is a lot more attention and hiring developers for the Zcash space is probably changing and will be easier going forward.

      • Decentralistdan: I agree with Gguy. & It’s great they want to bring on new developers and I would like to see the Zingo team grow and upskill/bring on new devs to Zcash in general. But I’m not sure this is the most effective and cost effective way to bring on devs at this moment by one specific team attending an event like this.

      • Zerodartz: To me it seems like a fun event for developers but it would slow down development of other things.

      • Artkor: I don’t want to approve this grant as the current form. There are too many uncertainties and overlaps with previously funded initiatives.

      • Jason: I agree with Arthur’s comment. For me I would consider, but not necessarily approve this if it was for a shorter amount of time. If it was for a developer conference that was a couple days I think that we could support this, but right now the Zingo team should be hyperfocused on Zaino and zcashd depreciation. My understanding is there’s still a lot of work that needs to be done and I just think that this feels like somewhat of an excessive request for a full month, and it’s not clear that there’s going to be any meaningful hiring efforts that come out of it. If it’s about recruiting, right now is probably a good opportunity to recruit with so much attention on Zcash, and I’d support the Zingo team building out their team. So maybe there’s something they can do online or at a smaller level. The last thing I’ll say is that I have a high opinion of the Zingo team.I think they’ve brought a lot of value to the ecosystem. I’d like to see them grow and have funding but this just doesn’t seem like the right way.

      • Gguy: Not with the current climate anyway.

      • Rejected.

  • Fastnode - Zcash publick nodes

    • Fastnode.io, a seasoned Web3 infrastructure provider with over three years of experience across 50+ blockchain networks, proposes to deploy and maintain free, high-availability public RPC endpoints for the Zcash network for one year. This $50,000 grant would fund infrastructure, maintenance, and monitoring to deliver 99.99% uptime, global redundancy, and a transparent monitoring dashboard. By offering rate-limited (10 RPS per IP) access without setup or authentication, the project lowers technical barriers for developers, wallets, and explorers, strengthening decentralization and ensuring reliable connectivity across the Zcash ecosystem.

      • Artkor: I believe there is no real need for this project at the proposed cost, because now all the devs building community tools such as ZecHub DashBoard or ZeroBits (which print screens we are ourselves use for our tweets post) already run their own nodes, and that’s the right approach. For smaller tasks, blockchain explorer APIs are sufficient. Spending $50,000 on this would not be a rational use of community funds.

      • Rejected.

  • iCert: Certificate Authority for Decentralized Web

    • iCert is a decentralized, privacy-preserving certificate authority built on Zcash’s zero-knowledge technology to enable community-governed TLS/SSL certificate management. Instead of relying on centralized CAs, iCert empowers validators to stake tokens and vote anonymously on certificate issuance, validation, and revocation, creating a transparent yet privacy-protected “certificate health” signal that browsers can query. By distributing trust and eliminating metadata exposure, iCert mitigates systemic risks, censorship vectors, and privacy leakage—offering a secure, community-driven alternative for sensitive domains like Tor, whistleblowing platforms, and activist media. Applicant is requesting $30,000.

      • Artkor: I suggest rejecting this proposal because it faces an obvious key problem. Such certificates would lack browser compatibility for browsers to recognize them, users would need to manually approve this certificate on their operating system by hand which is unrealistic in practice.

      • Gguy: Unfortunately, while this is actually an ongoing issue in the world of the internet I don’t think the usability of this addresses the issues in the ways that are going to get mass adoption.

      • Artkor: I agree with Gguy.

      • Zerodartz: This would be more effective as a retroactive request if there is adoption of this sort of certificate.

      • Jason: Agreed that a retroactive grant that seems appropriate for this type of grant.

      • Dan: Reject, supportive of a potential retroactive grant

      • Rejected.

  • Proposal to Fund Professional Development, English (101)

    • This project funds a 12-month Global Spanish Immersion and Academic Study program for a Zingo Labs developer, who will maintain full-time responsibilities while living and studying in multiple Spanish-speaking countries such as Mexico, Spain, Argentina, Colombia, and Chile. The goal is to achieve native-level Spanish fluency and deep cultural understanding to expand Zcash’s presence, education, and technical collaboration within Spanish-speaking crypto communities—particularly in Latin America, where Zcash currently lacks sustained engagement. The $48,000 grant will support language immersion, academic study, and continued Zingo Labs development to create a dedicated bilingual ambassador for regional outreach and translation.

      • ZCG has determined that this request is out of scope, therefore it’s rejected.

  • Proposal to Fund Professional Development, Spanish (102)

    • This project supports a 12-month Global English Immersion and Academic Study program for a Zingo Labs team member, who will continue their full-time work while studying and living in English-speaking countries such as Canada, Australia, India, and the UK. The $48,000 program aims to strengthen the participant’s English fluency, professional communication, and cross-cultural competence—skills essential for Zcash’s growing global presence and collaboration. Through full-time academic study, continued technical contributions, and total language immersion, the project will enhance Zingo Labs’ documentation quality, international coordination, and engagement across the worldwide Zcash ecosystem.

      • ZCG has determined that this request is out of scope, therefore it’s rejected.

  • Global Ambassador Nigeria-Elzz

    • This project aims to amplify Zcash’s core message of freedom and privacy by making it more accessible, engaging, and relevant—especially across Nigeria and other emerging regions. As a Zcash ambassador, I will bridge the gap between complex blockchain concepts and everyday understanding through consistent, beginner-friendly content, educational threads, visuals, and interactive Twitter Spaces. With experience growing Web3 communities in projects like Solana, Ice Open Network, and Star Tower Chain, I bring a proven track record of translating technical depth into relatable storytelling. My plan includes hosting regular online discussions, producing clear and engaging educational materials, and organizing local meetups to spark grassroots adoption. Ultimately, this initiative will strengthen Zcash’s visibility, community connection, and understanding of privacy as a form of digital freedom. Applicant is requesting $6,690.

      • Due to renewed interest in Zcash and the expectation that ZCG will receive more of these types of requests, we will be much stricter about requiring prior knowledge and a proven track record before approving such grants, particularly for applicants who have not yet integrated into the Zcash ecosystem.

      • Rejected.

  • Zcash Indian Ambassador Initiative

    • The Zcash India Ambassador Initiative aims to establish a dedicated India chapter that drives awareness, education, and adoption of Zcash through localized content, grassroots events, and developer engagement. With India’s rapidly growing blockchain ecosystem and vast pool of developers and students, this project seeks to fill the current gap in Zcash’s visibility and adoption by creating a strong local presence. Through educational workshops, university sessions, translations of Zcash resources into Indian languages, and collaborations with Web3 communities and developer DAOs, the initiative will introduce Zcash’s mission of privacy and financial freedom to new audiences. By launching official India-focused community channels and building a sustainable team for consistent engagement, this program will lay the foundation for a long-term, self-sustaining Zcash India Chapter that strengthens Zcash’s global ecosystem and positions it as a trusted leader in privacy-preserving digital assets within India’s expanding digital economy. Applicant is requesting $26,500.

      • Due to renewed interest in Zcash and the expectation that ZCG will receive more of these types of requests, we will be much stricter about requiring prior knowledge and a proven track record before approving such grants, particularly for applicants who have not yet integrated into the Zcash ecosystem.

      • Rejected.

Brainstorm Session Follow-Ups

  • Web3Privacy Conference

    • ZCG is working on organizing the sponsorship. Multiple ZCG members and community members will likely attend.

  • FPF Support Agreement

    • ZCG voted to approve a one year extension of FPF’s support agreement at the same cost and terms as the original agreement.

  • Treasury Hedging

    • ZCG instructed FPF to hedge an additional $850,000 worth of ZEC to strengthen ZCG’s USD reserves. ZCG, in cooperation with FPF, conducts regular reviews of treasury activities.
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