Zcash East Africa @ Africa Blockchain Festival 2026

Community Grants Applications
1

Hello Zcash community! :waving_hand:

We’ve submitted a ZCG grant application to bring Zcash to the Africa Blockchain Festival 2026 (ABF) — Africa’s largest blockchain and digital-economy conference, running October 15–17 at the Sarit Expo Centre, Nairobi. For 2026, ABF is co-hosting with the World Token Summit, pairing Africa’s grassroots and regulatory scene with a global network of funds, exchanges, and institutions.

GitHub issue: https://github.com/ZcashCommunityGrants/zcashcommunitygrants/issues/415

What it is

This is a Nairobi home-ground activation for our East African chapter: an onboarding, spend, and community campaign built around a Premium exhibition booth across both conference days, plus a merchant-spend side event and a virtual retention programme. Our belief is the one this community keeps proving: privacy money spreads through normalization, not persuasion; people adopt Zcash when they meet others who use it. Someone sits beside them for their first shielded transaction.

The activation runs across five connected pillars:

1. Booth onboarding. A staffed Premium booth (6m×3m) across both conference days as our onboarding and first-transaction station. Attendees install ZODL and receive a little starter ZEC to make a real shielded transaction on the spot.

2. Live app demos. Rolling demos of the Zcash app ecosystem — ZODL, CipherPay, and KuvarSend — showing the full user lifecycle: onboard → spend/off-ramp(merchants).

3. Merchant-spend side event. Hosted at Western Delicacy, a Nairobi restaurant we have already onboarded to accept shielded ZEC, where attendees actually spend it on food and merch alongside other already-onboarded merchants. Instead of hearing about shielded payments, people use them for everyday purchases and these merchants keep accepting ZEC afterwards. We are currently listing them on the ZEC Map maintained by the Zcash Türkiye team.

4. Regulator engagement. ABF convenes ~70 regulators, policy makers and central-bank reps at the exact moment African frameworks are being written (Kenya’s VASP Act is live). We use this room to make the case that privacy and compliance can coexist, countering the “privacy coins are for bad actors” narrative with how Zcash’s selective disclosure (view keys) actually works. With the World Token Summit merger, that message reaches African regulators and global funds and exchanges in the same room.

5. Developer cohort. Rather than a one-off workshop, we treat ABF as a talent-sourcing event, vetting the builders we meet into the founding cohort of a standing Zcash EA developers initiative.

The event is not the whole of the work

The event solves reach in the near term; the work either side of it is what lasts.

In the lead-up. Booth built, materials produced, merchants (already onboarded) dry-run tested, and on-chain measurement set up, pre-event community warm-up.

The event (Oct 15–17): across the Sarit Expo floor and the Western Delicacy side event.

Afterwards (within 30 days). A virtual, task-based 3-day onboarding session for new members — teaching them how to use Zcash and how to contribute — which is our retention mechanism: task completion is verifiable proof of engagement, not just attendance. Plus a 30-day developer follow-up, and a full public trip report to this thread within a week of the event.

Why this is one project. The booth creates the users; the merchants give them somewhere to spend so onboarding doesn’t decay into an unused app; the virtual session retains them; the developer cohort turns interest into contribution; and the regulator conversations happen in the one room on the continent where they matter most. Funding the booth alone produces a good three days. Funding the activation produces a live merchant network, a retained community, a developer cohort, and regulator relationships that are all still running afterwards.

Our track record

Everything below is documented publicly, month by month, in our activity reports on the forum since our May 3 launch — all achieved organically, with zero paid promotion:

Community growth (May → end August 2026):

  • X: 5 → 281 followers
  • Telegram: 2→ 178 members

In-person meetups at Cooperative University (Nairobi) and Fine Breeze (Voi), each with live ZODL wallet creation — Cooperative University invited us to keep partnering with their campus tech hub.

Online engagement: two X Spaces, one with 150+ live attendees.

Education & incentives: two completed $100 community bounties — a thread contest with 37 original submissions, and an Ironwood video challenge — plus consistent educational threads, ongoing Swahili localization of Zcash Ecosystem Digests, and a new TikTok channel.

Ecosystem integration (in progress): we are working with two exchanges to integrate ZEC for off-ramping, and with another project to enable ZEC → M-Pesa off-ramps — bringing Zcash to Kenya’s dominant payment rail. (This is why the booth demos ZODL → CipherPay → KuvarSend as a full lifecycle.)

Reports: our June–July 2026 activity report and May launch thread are public here.

What we’re committing to

Set conservatively against comparable ZCG-funded activations, adjusted for ABF’s scale and our home-ground advantage:

  • 65+ new ZODL onboards
  • 40+ first shielded (z2z) transactions, verified on-chain
  • 150+ new community members, retained through the virtual 3-day session (day-30 retention checked)
  • A live merchant-spend session at Western Delicacy + 3 onboarded merchants
  • A founding developer cohort recruited and vetted
  • A full trip report to this thread within 10 days

We’d genuinely value feedback — especially on the regulator engagement angle and on which ecosystem projects the community would most want us to demo on the floor. Given ABF is Oct 15–17, we’d be grateful for expedited review where possible.

Thanks for reading. Privacy is normal. :shield::globe_showing_europe_africa:

Sonnie · Zcash East Africa ·
[@ZcashEastAfrica] · [Telegram]

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Zcash Community Grants Meeting Minutes 9/14/2026
Zcash Community Grants (ZCG) Meeting Minutes 9/28/2026
2

Thanks for the comprehensive proposal. I support the goals around Zcash onboarding, merchant adoption, and regulator engagement in Kenya.

However, I have concerns about Pillar 2 and the inclusion of KuvarSend. Since KuvarSend is a commercial multi-asset platform, a ZCG-funded activation could potentially provide it with user acquisition, branding, and transaction volume beyond Zcash ~

Could you clarify this

• Will any ZCG funds go directly toward KuvarSend’s commercial operations or development?

• Will ZCG funded branding and materials remain Zcash/ZODL focused?

• Will KuvarSend be demonstrated only as an enabling tool for ZEC payments or off ramping, rather than promoted as a general multi asset app?

• Is KuvarSend providing any co funding or in kind contribution given the commercial benefit it may receive?

My concern is simply ensuring that community treasury funds primarily drive measurable Zcash adoption rather than unintentionally subsidizing customer acquisition for a commercial multi chain platform ~

3

Thank you so much for your reply and questions

Zero funds from the proposed budget will go to kuvarsend in any way

yes the branding materials will be purely zcash themed and no for of marketing will be don for kuvarsend through the merchandised

As stated the presence of KuvarSend is to provide an alternative option to near intents for the merchants or users who might be interested in off-ramping zec directly to their business account operators(banks)

Kuvarsend is not providing any funding for this initiative; we would like to point out that the kuvarsend team didn’t request for any funding to integrate zec into their platform when we discussed it with them. we are also currently discussing ways to improve them accepting more shielded payments

Our focus remains on providing more ways people can spend encrypted digital cash(ZEC) in East Africa.

4

Thanks for the clarification. I think my concern is a bit different from whether ZCG funds are going directly to KuvarSend.

The concern is the indirect commercial benefit. If a ZCG funded initiative introduces Zcash users and merchants to KuvarSend as an alternative for off-ramping ZEC, KuvarSend could still gain new users, transaction volume, and merchant relationships from that activity, even without receiving any of the grant money directly.

And because KuvarSend is a multi asset platform, there’s also the possibility that users who come through the Zcash ecosystem could end up using the platform for other assets as well.

So I don’t think the issue is simply whether KuvarSend is being funded. It’s whether community grant funding is indirectly helping a commercial platform acquire users.

I completely understand the goal of increasing ZEC utility and making shielded payments more practical in East Africa. I just think the proposal should address that potential commercial benefit more explicitly ~

5

I understand your point, but it seems similar to asking why ZEC is listed on Binance because it will bring more users to Binance. Note that we decided to ask this exchange to list ZEC because they are already part ot the East African crypto market, and as much as Zcash users could end up using the platform to buy other assets, it is the same as saying KuvarSend users can also easily buy ZEC and send to their Zcash wallet without having to go to a third-party application like Binance or Gemini (which is not accessible in the region)

Talking about indirect benefit, a lot of CEXs have listed and currently trade ZEC (Transparent), e.g., Binance, Kraken, Coinbase, etc. Would we say the listing has not been of commercial benefit to the growth of the Zcash ecosystem? I believe not so I’d say the commercial benefit is actually symbiotic, as we get to reach the user base of Kuvarsend(one of many integrations as we increase merchant adoption) while growing ZEC usage in East Africa.

Also note that our focus is not Kuvarsend but representing Zcash at African blockchain Festival

6

The Binance comparison isn’t persuasive simply because Binance and KuvarSend are both exchanges. The commercial circumstances aren’t comparable. Binance already has enormous independent user acquisition, liquidity and market presence; a ZCG-funded initiative introducing Zcash users and merchants to a regional platform can create a much more direct and material customer acquisition benefit for that platform.

More importantly, the issue isn’t whether KuvarSend can benefit from ZEC. Obviously it can. The issue is that this potential commercial benefit should have been acknowledged and disclosed in the application rather than being dismissed after the fact as merely symbiotic.

If a ZCG funded initiative is going to introduce Zcash users, merchants and transaction volume to a specific private commercial platform, then the potential private benefit and any relationship between you and that platform should be transparently disclosed.

So the relevant questions I wanna ask are
Was the potential commercial benefit to KuvarSend disclosed?

Is there any financial, business, or other relationship between you and KuvarSend?

Why was KuvarSend selected specifically?

And what safeguards are in place to ensure ZCG funding isn’t effectively subsidising customer acquisition for a private company?

These questions need to be answered before the Binance comparison can be treated as an adequate response to the conflict of interest concern ~

7

You’re right, and I’d rather address this head-on than lean on the Binance comparison; I’ll drop that thought, since it’s obviously not the right response to the question you raised. The potential for a private platform to benefit from a zcg grant meant for a regional community is a fair thng to flag, and it should have been acknowledged up front rather than described as symbiotic after the fact. so let me answer your four questions directly.

No, not explicitly, and i understand now that it should have been. The application presented KuvarSend as ecosystem tooling just like cipherpay and Zodl and as a way to demo the full off-ramp lifecycle, but it didn’t separately acknowledge that introducing Zcash users and merchants to a specific platform could be a customer-acquisition benefit to that platform. That was a gap, and I’m correcting it here.

No. Neither I nor anyone on the Zcash East Africa team has any financial, equity, business, referral, or compensatory relationship with KuvarSend. We receive no payment, revenue share, referral fee, or benefit of any kind from users or merchants who interact with the platform. Our involvement was purely technical and community-focused, helping get ZEC integrated as ecosystem contributors, with no arrangement attached.

It wasn’t a preferential choice. We reached out to multiple exchanges about integrating ZEC for off-ramping; this is part of our ongoing ecosystem work (documented in our activity reports). KuvarSend was simply the first to complete a working integration. The selection was driven entirely by which platform actually shipped a functioning ZEC off-ramp we could rely on for a live demo, not by any relationship or preference. The others remain in progress, and as they go live, they’ll be equally part of the picture.

Concretely:

  1. No grant funds flow to KuvarSend or any exchange for the platform’s commercial benefit
    (2) we receive no compensation tied to referrals, sign-ups, or volume;
    (3) KuvarSend is shown as one example within the off-ramp category, not promoted as the exclusive or preferred option
    We’re happy to present it neutrally alongside other exchanges as they come online, and to name the category rather than a single brand;
  2. If the @zcg committee would prefer, we can demo the off-ramp step generically or drop KuvarSend from the funded activation entirely. The grant’s value is Zcash onboarding and adoption, and it doesn’t depend on any single platform.

The purpose of this activation is Zcash adoption, not driving business to any private company. If any part of it reads as the latter, we’ll restructure it. I’ll also add a short conflict-of-interest / disclosure note to the application itself so this is on the record there and not just in the thread.

Thanks for holding this to the right standard.

1 Like
8

@Z.cash.EastAfrica at the most recent meeting, ZCG voted to approve this proposal. Congratulations!

To keep the community informed, ZCG requests that you provide monthly updates via the forum in this thread.

Please check your forum inbox for a direct message from FPF with important next steps, including a link to the Milestone Payment Request Form and your unique validation code for submitting payment requests.

2 Likes
9

Thank you we will keep up