Zcash Community Grants Committee Google Meet Meeting: May 26, 2025
[Minutes taken by FPF]
Attendance:
- Artkor
- Brian
- GGuy
- Jason
- Zerodartz
- Alex (FPF resource, notetaker)
Key Takeaways:
- Open Grants
- Ledger Live Integration
- Deliberations continue.
- Zcash Arabia
- Unanimous rejection.
- Taking Zcash to School 2.0
- Unanimous rejection.
- ZSAs in NU7 (H2 2025)
- Too early to vote.
- Zaino Respecification
- Too early to vote.
- Ledger Live Integration
Open Grant Proposals
- Ledger Live Integration
- Zondax: This project’s main objective is to integrate the new Zcash Ledger Shielded application with Ledger Live to enable transparent transaction support. While they intend to explore shielded transaction integration in a subsequent phase, their initial focus is on delivering transparent transaction support within a reasonable timeframe to ensure a successful and timely release. The requestor is asking for $95,000.
- The committee is continuing deliberations related to this grant. An update will be provided shortly.
- Zondax: This project’s main objective is to integrate the new Zcash Ledger Shielded application with Ledger Live to enable transparent transaction support. While they intend to explore shielded transaction integration in a subsequent phase, their initial focus is on delivering transparent transaction support within a reasonable timeframe to ensure a successful and timely release. The requestor is asking for $95,000.
- Zcash Arabia
- Zcash Arabia aims to establish a thriving Arabic-speaking community for Zcash by providing high-quality educational resources, engagement activities, and developer support. Our goal is to increase awareness, adoption, and development around Zcash in the MENA region. They are asking for $10,000. ZCG members were asked for their feedback and vote.
- Jason: There hasn’t been enough engagement with the community and ongoing content to justify a new grant. I reject.
- Gguy: I’m happy to reject and advise this team to try and engage more with the community before applying for another grant.
- Zerodartz: I am overall positive about the region but I’d like to see them more active and then submit a new grant request. I reject.
- Wobzz: I agree with ZD and I also reject this request.
- Artkor: I haven’t seen enough of an argument or results to support this grant request. We already gave them feedback, suggesting they become more actively involved with the community, but the revised proposal didn’t reflect any meaningful changes. At this stage I think it is reasonable to reject this proposal.
- Jason: Like Zerodartz said, I think the region is incredibly important and I think we’ve had other good ambassadors in that region that consistently created a lot of meaningful content and it would be good to see this applicant do the same before extending grant money to them.
- Unanimous rejection.
- Zcash Arabia aims to establish a thriving Arabic-speaking community for Zcash by providing high-quality educational resources, engagement activities, and developer support. Our goal is to increase awareness, adoption, and development around Zcash in the MENA region. They are asking for $10,000. ZCG members were asked for their feedback and vote.
- Taking Zcash to School 2.0
- Taking Zcash to School 2.0 is a three-month outreach and adoption program designed to introduce Nigerian university students and young tech professionals to the privacy-preserving cryptocurrency Zcash (ZEC) through a coordinated series of educational and experiential events. They are asking for $9,500. ZCG members were asked for their feedback and vote.
- Gguy: I don’t really see that this amount of funding would provide a net benefit in this context so I reject.
- Artkor: My main reason for rejection is that this project seems very localized without a clear path to wider impact. I don’t believe that this represents enough return for the Zcash community. I reject.
- Wobzz: I agree with Artkor but additionally I don’t think this applicant has taken our feedback or the community’s input and they haven’t used that feedback to collaborate with the ecosystem. They’re just submitting multiple proposals requesting funding, without really engaging with the ecosystem, figuring out the best ways that they can contribute. So I reject this one.
- Zerodartz: I like that they have improved their proposal compared to previous ones and they have taken some feedback. Still, I think it’s not a perfect one. And since we have Zcash Nigeria community already active in that region, they should try to find ways to contribute with others even though I understand it’s not easy. I’m rejecting it right now.
- Jason: Artkor made the point that it’s overly localized and I agree with that very much. I don’t see something like this being effective and I also don’t think that he has, nor his organization has, demonstrated the required technical knowledge of Zcash to deliver on something like this, which I’ve mentioned to him in response to other proposals that he has submitted as well. The other thing is something Zerodartz mentioned, which is that we already funded Chidi in this region and I would like to continue supporting that initiative. I reject as well.
- Unanimous rejection.
- Taking Zcash to School 2.0 is a three-month outreach and adoption program designed to introduce Nigerian university students and young tech professionals to the privacy-preserving cryptocurrency Zcash (ZEC) through a coordinated series of educational and experiential events. They are asking for $9,500. ZCG members were asked for their feedback and vote.
- ZSAs in NU7 (H2 2025)
- This grant proposal from QEDIT continues the work initiated in Grant #6 to integrate Zcash Shielded Assets (ZSAs) into Network Upgrade 7 (NU7). As ZSA development has evolved alongside other core components like Zebra and Orchard, integration now requires focused engineering to avoid misalignment and inefficiencies. A dedicated team of eight engineers and architects will implement protocol updates across the stack, ensure compatibility with other NU7 efforts, collaborate with ECC on OrchardZSA reviews, and maintain tools such as zcash_tx_tool. By concentrating efforts on resolving the “moving target” challenges, this grant ensures timely and coordinated ZSA support throughout the NU7 release cycle. They are requesting $708,000.
- ZCG has requested further details from QEDIT prior to discussing and voting on this proposal.
- Too early to vote.
- This grant proposal from QEDIT continues the work initiated in Grant #6 to integrate Zcash Shielded Assets (ZSAs) into Network Upgrade 7 (NU7). As ZSA development has evolved alongside other core components like Zebra and Orchard, integration now requires focused engineering to avoid misalignment and inefficiencies. A dedicated team of eight engineers and architects will implement protocol updates across the stack, ensure compatibility with other NU7 efforts, collaborate with ECC on OrchardZSA reviews, and maintain tools such as zcash_tx_tool. By concentrating efforts on resolving the “moving target” challenges, this grant ensures timely and coordinated ZSA support throughout the NU7 release cycle. They are requesting $708,000.
- Zaino Respecification
- Zingo Labs: Unanticipated architectural challenges have emerged in the Zaino project due to inaccuracies in the published zcashd RPC specifications. To address this without delaying the overall Zaino timeline, we are reallocating additional development resources to rewrite key components of the architecture. This grant will support the effort to define, implement, and test a reliable and authoritative spec that aligns with the updated Zaino implementation. They are requesting $44,000.
- This grant was posted yesterday so the committee has not yet had time to review.
- Too early to vote.
- Zingo Labs: Unanticipated architectural challenges have emerged in the Zaino project due to inaccuracies in the published zcashd RPC specifications. To address this without delaying the overall Zaino timeline, we are reallocating additional development resources to rewrite key components of the architecture. This grant will support the effort to define, implement, and test a reliable and authoritative spec that aligns with the updated Zaino implementation. They are requesting $44,000.
Brainstorm Session Follow-Ups
- Maya Protocol
- Maya integration is complete. ZCG heard that the Maya team had to do more work than expected and as a result, ZCG is working with Hanh and Maya to understand the details prior to the final milestones being paid out.
- BTC Pay Server
- 1337bytes has connected with NYM and they’ve discussed the minimum setup they would need. Nym would like the Zcash plugin to be supported as part of the btcpayserver-docker setup process, without requiring direct edits to the generated Docker Compose file. This was planned already for fresh installation, but needs to be implemented also for modifying existing BTCPay instances to allow for seamless upgrades. A working version of the old setup isn’t sufficient for their use case. Ideally, NYM wants to run a pruned node — something lightweight and easy to maintain. However, given how the Zcash infrastructure works today, that’s not currently possible. A pruned node can’t support lightwalletd on its own, because lightwalletd requires access to the full blockchain data. So for now, NYM will need to rely on external nodes, like zecrocks. Later on, they can switch to their own setup with lightwalletd and Zebra if they choose to. 1337bytes is working on that now, along with some improvements to the plugin itself. He’s already added Zcash-specific settings to the graphical interface, like support for viewing keys and confirmation counts — which previously had to be configured manually. In this way, the initial setup process will be simplified as much as possible. I’ll just quote 1337bytes: “It’ll be practically the same process as installing the Monero plugin."
- Zerodartz: Conference
- Zerodartz is attending Berlin Blockchain week on behalf of ZCG.