Zcash Community Grants Meeting Minutes April 27, 2026

Community Grants Community Grants Updates
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Zcash Community Grants Committee Google Meet Meeting: April 27, 2026

Attendance:

  • Artkor

  • GGuy

  • Hanh

  • Zerodartz

  • DecentralistDan

  • Alex (FPF resource, notetaker)

Key Takeaways:

All votes this week were unanimous.

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.

      • Gguy: We’re still waiting on some extra feedback on this grant and we hope to have an update in the coming week or two.

      • Remains open

  • 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’re waiting on feedback and will discuss and vote once we have all the relevant information.

      • Remains open

  • Zcash CIS Media & Community Growth Program 2026

    • 3-month Russian-language campaign across Telegram, YouTube, and livestream: 9 posts, 6 livestream mentions, logo placement, one podcast interview. Requesting $9,000.

      • Artkor: I remain cautious about media grants because they can easily be perceived as paid mentions, promotional placements, or price-oriented messaging, which we don’t support. ZCG-funded content should be strictly educational. Since the current version of the proposal appears to remove the promotional elements, I would support approving a one-month pilot focused on educational Zcash content for the Russian-speaking audience. In my view, one month is enough to evaluate the initial results and decide whether further collaboration makes sense. The applicants may decline this reduced scope if it does not work for them. I’m also willing to provide methodological support in preparing Zcash-related materials.

      • Gguy: Yes, I agree. I’m happy to go back and request a one month trial.

      • Hanh: I agree as well, one month, just to have at least one video in Russian for the Russian audience would be good. The rest of our material is usually in English. So to have something for our Russian users would be positive. I approve for one month as well.

      • Zerodartz: Yeah, I’m also willing to approve for one month and see what the results are and then see if we want to go further or not. I think Zcash is still underrepresented in this region.

      • DecentralistDan: I agree as well. Approved for one month and I’m happy to hear that Artkor will provide support and I’d like to re-evaluate after one month.

      • Approved (1 month)

  • Zcash Network School

    • 3-month structured hub near Singapore (May–July 2026) with office space, weekly office hours, workshops, wallet onboarding, and merchant POS adoption. Targets 100 new wallets and 4 POS integrations. Requesting $13,600.

      • Artkor: We have already approved, and I have good expectations for this proposal.

      • Hanh: I approve as well because this is for creating educational material to be presented in the network school which is essentially a group of crypto enthusiasts that are working and living in close quarters. They are working on crypto projects of different natures. Therefore, having Zcash classes could broaden the horizons of the other participants, and we could see new ideas developed as a result.

      • Gguy: I think we’ve seen good results from these types of projects where participants get more of a hands-on experience. I was encouraged by the hackathon and how some of those participants are still contributing to the ecosystem today. I’m hoping that a similar thing can occur from this initiative.

      • Zerodartz: Yeah, I agree. Getting more new talented people try to build something with Zcash is good for us. And the budget for this project is reasonable.

      • DecentralistDan: I agree, approved. I think the network school is a very cool concept and supporting individuals who are already there and interested in staying and providing educational content could be highly impactful.

      • Approved async

  • Zecret Ballots_2

    • Extended CRISP-based coercion-resistant voting for ZEC holders with homomorphic tallying, threshold decryption, shielded wallet support, and gasless transactions. Target deployment: ZecHub governance. Requesting $132,391.

      • Artkor: I have a lot of respect for this team and for the work they have done, and we are grateful that they brought this proposal to us. But to me, this still feels like a significant duplication of work that has already been built and is now in the final stage before production launch.

      • hanh: Yeah, there’s much more traction regarding the proposal for the coin voting that doesn’t require moving coins out of cold storage which is currently being implemented in ZODL. Therefore I think that this voting system would not compete well with what is currently being built.

      • Zerodartz: Not much to add. We have an updated voting system coming soon, so investing into more voting systems at this point in time is not a priority.

      • Declined

  • ​​BTCPayServer Multi-Account and 0conf Mempool Support

    • The applicant proposes to improve the existing BTCPayServer Zcash plugin by adding zero-confirmation (0conf) mempool notifications and multi-account/multi-store wallet support. The work includes building a new wallet RPC service on the Zkool GraphQL API, updating the plugin, and retroactive compensation for prior bug fixes and maintenance. The improvements would allow merchants to accept Zcash payments without waiting for block confirmation and enable shared BTCPayServer hosting across multiple merchants. Requesting $42,000.

      • Gguy: Vote on this one is pending additional feedback.

      • Zerodartz: I think both these new features would improve the user side experience. Still need to see more feedback from the community and others.

      • Remains open

  • Zcash Marketing at Istanbul Blockchain Week & Community Activation

    • The team is requesting funding to operate a branded booth at Istanbul Blockchain Week, deploying an 8-person team over two days to conduct wallet onboarding, live interviews, and community outreach in Turkish and English. The applicant cites Turkey’s high crypto adoption rate as justification for the investment. Targets include 1,000 attendee interactions, 50+ interviews, and 250 wallet setups, with content distributed across social media post-event. Requesting $15,900.

      • Gguy: We think this could have a positive impact on Zcash and awareness so we approved.

      • Hanh: Looks like a strong proposal. We work with this applicant before. He has always delivered high quality results.

      • Zerodartz: They did quite well at this event last year with limited donations based funding.Will be nice to see what’s the impact this year with a higher budget, more team members and time to prepare.

      • Artkor: I’m glad that this will be another major event this year, where Zcash will have strong representation.

      • Decentralistdan: active community member, building on the success of last year, this is a strong proposal to continue building on the current and past work in the region

      • Approved async

  • BTCPayServer Zcash Plugin: Per-Store Zcash Configuration for Multi-Store BTCPay Instances

    • The applicant proposes to complete and properly finish an in-progress fix to the BTCPayServer Zcash plugin, scoping Zcash configuration to the store level so multiple stores on a single BTCPay instance remain fully isolated. Work includes finishing the MVP, adding an upgrade path for existing installs, automated tests, and reviewer documentation. Requesting $24,500.

      • Hanh: This is essentially a subset of the proposal from 1337Bytes and I think it’s actually weaker than that one. It is half the price but it’s the part that is less required, less requested from the users. The implementation solution is not the one that would be future proof. I suspect that this proposal was generated through AI. Therefore I would vote to reject it because I don’t think the plan is very sound.

      • Artkor: Yes I agree. I’m not comfortable approving this proposal because in my view the applicant did not demonstrate sufficient familiarity with the BTCPayServer that they intend to modify.

      • Zerodartz: I do see value in having multi-store implementation possibility. But not sure how many merchants exactly need it.

      • Declined

  • ChainSafe #3 - Zcash Metamask Snap and Webzjs maintenance renewal

    • ChainSafe requests a second year of maintenance funding for WebZjs, their JavaScript browser library for Zcash wallets, including the MetaMask Snap and associated browser wallet. Work covers security updates, protocol compatibility, stability, and additional features as agreed with the committee. Requesting $168,000.

      • Artkor: When we approved the one-year maintenance grant, the library was still new, and first-year support made sense because bugs often surface after real-world use. However, ZCG cannot fund library maintenance indefinitely. At this stage, I think we should move to a more targeted model, where specific issues can be funded individually based on urgency, effort, and ecosystem value.

      • Hanh: Yeah, that makes sense. I would say that the previous model was to have a funding subscription model where the developer would fix issues and make improvements, and then bill based on the task and effort made. But unfortunately I think that didn’t work out in practice because we didn’t see much response to issues and bugs reported in the forum. So in my opinion the idea was good but the execution was not as good. Therefore it would be better to go with the model where we offer bounties or rewards for actual work getting committed and bugs being fixed.

      • Gguy: Yeah I definitely see there is a need for this library. But going forward we’d like to work with real users and their needs and respond accordingly. We’ll continue to look into ways to provide support for the users that are currently or future using this.

      • Zerodartz: WebZjs is an important tool. The previous maintenance was at times very delayed. For example NU6 upgrades took way too long which made the wallets using this library basically unusable for a while. I think it’s a good team but for some reason they weren’t timely enough with updates to the library when needed.

      • Decentralistdan: the webZjs library needs to be maintained but we should be looking at alternative ways to reach that goal

      • Declined

  • Castle Labs Research

    • Castle Labs is a three-year-old blockchain research and advisory firm specializing in institutional-grade long-form content, with recognized roles in Arbitrum’s ARDC and its $200M gaming fund, and clients including Mantle, Starknet, and Berachain. Their proposed work targets a gap in Zcash adoption: despite maturing tooling and real-world demand for financial privacy, most users lack understanding of ZEC’s technology and recent developments. Requesting $17,040.

      • Artkor: At this stage, several large analytical agencies are already publishing open research on Zcash and its infrastructure on a recurring basis in that context, I don’t see a sufficiently strong need to commission another similar external research piece.

      • Hanh: Especially since we already have articles being written about Zcash I think funding something that is like this would actually have an opposite effect where it would give the impression that we have to fund good stuff about Zcash. It’s like a paid promotion or sponsoring. Therefore, I vote to reject

      • Zerodartz: I also think that while it’s good to have these sorts of articles, we already have quite a lot coming from organic or maybe funded by other parties. I don’t find this grant to possibly have a big enough impact.

      • Decentralistdan: Out of scope for current funding as there is organic research and analysis coming out frequently

      • Declined

  • ZPrivDEX

    • ZPrivDEX proposes the first fully shielded Zcash DEX — pool funds in Orchard addresses secured by FROST threshold signatures, trade validity enforced by Halo2 ZK proofs, with no transparent intermediary. Three phases: FROST-secured pools, a ZK-AMM circuit, and post-NU7 ZSA pairs. A decentralized light client layer ships as a standalone public-good library. All code MIT-licensed. Requesting $203,000.

      • Artkor: We have already seen similar ZK-based private DEX ideas elsewhere, and at least one of the more notable examples has wound down operations for reasons that were not clearly stated publicly. More importantly, I am not convinced that fully private swap execution is necessarily beneficial for Zcash. In my view, public visibility of swap activity can be an important safety tradeoff; it does not have to compromise user privacy, but it can help the community understand incidents and trace stolen assets when something goes wrong. I don’t see the need to support this proposal yet, at least until we have ZSAs and we’ve gone at least a couple of years without any major DEX hack.

      • Gguy: I’ve had similar concerns about the applicant’s ability to deliver on this grant. I’m ready to reject.

      • DecentralistDan: I’m ready to reject as well.

      • Hanh: This looks like technically not ready and is mostly “vibe-coded”. I don’t think it would work as described.

      • Zerodartz: With ZSAs possibly not coming any time soon, this grant is unnecessary at this time. Also the architecture seems overly complicated.

      • Declined

  • Zcash CIS Educational Initiative

    • Invest Zone, operator of the CIS region’s largest crypto Telegram channel, requests a grant to build Russian-language Zcash educational infrastructure over three months, targeting 26–30 million underserved crypto users. Deliverables include a content series, four live streams, a podcast, short videos, a knowledge base, a 24/7 Telegram bot, and a ZEC-distributing quiz campaign, deploying 20+ team members across parallel tracks, with offline expansion planned if the pilot succeeds. Requesting $36,050.

      • Gguy: I think this is out of scope of funding for ZCG. It doesn’t fit with our support of educational content. This feels more like paid promotion than education. I vote to reject.

      • Hanh: The website was more about how to make money trading crypto.

      • Zerodartz: This one is in the same region as one other grant and at a bigger budget. The vibe of the channels doesn’t seem aligned enough with Zcash.

      • Declined

  • ZEC BUILDERS HUB - UNIABUJA

    • The ZEC Builders Hub seeks $32,500 to establish a permanent 60-seat ZCash developer training center at the University of Abuja, Nigeria, delivering four annual cohorts of 25 developers through an 8-module curriculum spanning Web3 fundamentals to advanced zero-knowledge development, alongside deployment of a live ZCash full node. The project aims to produce 100+ trained privacy engineers and an open-source curriculum to seed a lasting developer pipeline across West Africa.

      • Gguy: I don’t think I’m ready to support this team yet. I would like them to establish a stronger track record before we approving community projects like this.

      • Zerodartz: I’m not leaning positive quite yet. So they could maybe go toZecHub for an intro. I think we need to see a smaller test project from this team first before we have enough data to decide on.

      • DecentralistDan: I’m good with the reject as well. This feels like a standard intro to ZecHub to see how they contribute and then go from there.

      • Artkor: Yes, I agree.

      • Declined

  • Formal Verification of CompactSize Encoding in zebra-chain

    • Applicant proposes a four-week pilot to formally verify Zcash’s CompactSize integer encoding in Zebra using a Rust → Aeneas → Lean 4 pipeline they’ve validated on prior cryptographic targets. The work produces machine-checked proofs of five consensus-critical properties — including canonicity, round-trip fidelity, and panic-freedom — with all artifacts public and extensible to larger Zebra targets like Amount arithmetic and v5/v6 transaction serialization. Requesting $80,000.

      • Hanh: They’re just checking the validity of the compactsize which is the encoding of an integer in a variable number of bytes. So that’s a very small part of the protocol and it’s coming from Bitcoin. It’s actually part of the Satoshi paper. Therefore I really don’t see the value of formal verification on something so trivial that has been used by everyone. Plus it’s $80,000. I reject.

      • Zerodartz: This grant seems out of balance for what it is.

      • Decentralistdan: reject, based on feedback from dev team

      • Declined

  • Zonp - Wallet-Native Commerce on Zcash

    • Zonp proposes a commerce layer for Zcash that uses memo fields as a structured data channel — embedding orders, invoices, receipts, and encrypted messages directly into shielded transactions. A working mainnet prototype exists. The grant would harden it into production infrastructure via cryptographic authentication (shifting from “parse → trust” to “verify → trust”) and formalize a reusable memo specification for ecosystem-wide adoption. Requesting $90,000.

      • Artkor: This looks strange to me.

      • Hanh: The way they want to do it is to send orders, invoices, receipts, etc. Thisis usually sent by email between the buyer and the seller. They want to put that into a memo. I don’t really see the value in doing that since this is easily something that should be transmitted out of band, I don’t see why you should commit that to a blockchain and include that in the blockchain for everyone. Therefore for me the value of the proposal is the main problem. I think the users would prefer getting it by email anyway. Besides, it is an internal implementation. It doesn’t add new wallet features (it builds on existing wallets), and it doesn’t improve payment systems.

      • Zerodartz: In a way, it’s kind of like a negative value because it’s adding weight to the blockchain with stuff most people don’t need to be on the blockchain. Also this data permanently on chain even if private is not smart.

      • Hanh: I reject because in this proposal the only thing that cannot be done with the current technology is putting invoices, receipts, etc. in the blockchain systematically and I don’t think that this is the right place to do considering that is something that should be done out of band the rest creating QR codes and what else do they say about that and the ability to receive donation directly. This is achievable with payment URIs and the current technology.

      • Gguy: Thanks, I agree.

      • Declined

  • Voterax

    • Voterax proposes privacy-preserving coordination infrastructure that extends Zcash’s zero-knowledge model into governance, grant/bounty management, and talent discovery — enabling private voting, confidential reward distribution, and verifiable contributor reputation. The system aims to replace capital-weighted, opaque coordination with contribution-based influence verified through ZK proofs. Requesting $35,000.

      • Artkor: This is out of scope especially for similar private voting projects that are not clearly Zcash-native

      • Zerodartz: Yes this seems overly complicated for a voting system.

      • Hanh: I think it’s out of scope. The only thing I see that is a little bit related to Zcash is the ZK powered voting and even that is far from the Zcash payment system.

      • Gguy: I also think this is out of scope and not something we’re currently looking to fund. I’m happy to reject this one now.

      • Decentralistdan: out of scope for funding

      • Declined

  • Zush · Quiet Money for Zcash, US Phase 1

    • Zush proposes a Zcash-integrated debit card product with two tiers: a no-KYC prepaid voucher tier (Visa gift cards + x402/CipherPay) and a light-KYC bank-tied tier (Column rails, Apple/Google Pay), both backed by a user-held ShieldedVault, with cashback paid in shielded ZEC. Requesting $100,000.

      • Artkor: I’d prefer to wait and review more.

      • Zerodartz: I’m skeptical of this sort of card system being sustainable with Zcash, as there are so many other projects providing crypto cards in general.

      • Remains open

  • Grassroots Marketing Team at DWeb Camp

    • A returning grassroots marketing team proposes sending four people to DWeb Camp 2026 in Berlin (July 2026) to conduct Zodl wallet demonstrations, Zcash/CipherPay education, and developer outreach, continuing a campaign series that has previously covered DevConnect Buenos Aires, ETHDenver, and ETHCC Cannes. Requesting $10,200.

      • Zerodartz: I gave them feedback last week and they changed it to be much more aligned with the event. Before it was a bit too much marketing focused like their last events. Now it’s more aligned and the goal is finding new people and projects to connect with and attend and learn. Also they reduced their budget so now it’s pretty reasonable. They have done a good job representing Zcash at previous different types of events.

      • Gguy: I’m also supportive of this one but I’m happy to keep this one open for a bit longer to receive more feedback.

      • Decentralistdan: supportive of this team attending

      • Remains open

  • Revocable Private Delegation in Token Holder Voting

    • Nethermind proposes a research and engineering project to design and prototype a private voting delegation protocol for Zcash token holders — enabling holders to delegate and revoke voting power without revealing their identity — intended to be composable with existing Zcash e-voting proposals. Deliverables are a design specification and a proof of concept**. Requesting $140,900.**

      • Remains open

  • Teenagers in Blockchain Africa (TIBA)

    • TIBA proposes a three-month Zcash education and community activation program across Nigeria, delivering monthly physical meetups, developer workshops, X-Space discussions, and social media content to an existing audience of 500+ trained builders and 2,000+ community members, with the goal of introducing shielded transaction concepts and building a Zcash-aware developer pipeline on the continent. Requesting $12,600.

      • Remains open

  • Zcash University Outreach Initiative – Mexico

    • Applicant proposes a structured university outreach initiative across five Mexican institutions (UNAM, IPN, Tec de Monterrey, UdeG, BUAP), delivering focused 1–2 day technical engagements covering Zcash privacy fundamentals and hands-on developer tooling, with the goal of cultivating small, durable campus communities rather than maximizing headcount. Requesting $47,500.

      • Remains open

Other:

ZCG has been closely following the developments of AI and security in the Zcash ecosystem and as such are launching a new program to help protect the community and users by allocating a pool of funds which we will reserve for the purposes of paying out bounties to researchers who find and disclose Zcash vulnerabilities to the ecosystem. We think it’ll help protect Zcash now and into the future and get us through this patch of ever accelerating AI and security advancement that is happening in recent times.

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Grant Application Zush. Quiet Money for Zcash, Phase 1