Zcash East Africa @ Africa Blockchain Festival 2026

[Z.cash.EastAfrica]

Hello Zcash community!

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

[Princematty]

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 ~

[Z.cash.EastAfrica]

Thank you so much for your reply and questions

@Princematty

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

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

@Princematty

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

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

@Princematty

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

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)

@Princematty

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

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.

[Princematty]

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 ~

[Z.cash.EastAfrica]

@Princematty

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.

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)

@Princematty

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.

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

[Princematty]

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 ~

[Z.cash.EastAfrica]

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.

@Princematty

Was the potential commercial benefit to KuvarSend disclosed?

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.

@Princematty

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

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.

@Princematty

Why was KuvarSend selected specifically?

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.

@Princematty

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

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.

[ZCG]

@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.

[Z.cash.EastAfrica]

Thank you we will keep up

[Z.cash.EastAfrica]

So far we appreciate @ZCG for this opportunity and have been working on making this a successful initiative
hence we have already booked the venue for the side event and have been able to secure the exhibition slot during the event

ZcashKenyaCommunity

Africa Blockchain Festival

[Z.cash.EastAfrica]

Zcash East Africa @ Africa Blockchain Festival 2026 Post-Event Report.

Background

ABF 2026 was co-hosted with the World Token Summit and brought together regulators, investors, exchanges, founders, developers, and Nairobi’s wider tech community. Zcash had almost no presence at this kind of event in East Africa before this year. Our grant funded a booth, a merchant-spend side event, and a retention programme, built on one idea this community keeps proving: privacy money spreads through normalization, not persuasion. People adopt Zcash when they meet others who use it and someone sits with them through a first shielded transaction.

Results against our commitments

Commitment (from the application)	Result	Notes
65+ ZODL onboards	111 onboarded and created a ZODL Wallet
150+ new community members, retained via the virtual session	111+ joined X and Telegram	Retention check at day 30 is still to come
Side event with merchant-spend session	50 attendees at Western Delicacy, Oct 16	merchants transacting live
Panel appearance (not a committed deliverable)	Sonnie invited to speak as a panelist
Trip report within one week

What we did

The booth

Our Premium booth was our onboarding and first-transaction station. Our flow was the one we described in the grant: introduce the privacy problem, explain how Zcash solves it, demonstrate live, then give clear next steps. Visitors installed ZODL on their own devices and received starter ZEC so they could complete a real shielded transaction.

• Booth conversations: 120+

• Wallets created at the booth: 111

• What drew people in: The Demo and the assumed novelty of Zcash

  

Live app demos

We ran showcased demos of the Zcash app ecosystem at the booth and at the side event, covering the user lifecycle from onboarding to spending to cashing out: Private payments using ZODL

Side event: Zcash — The Privacy Layer

Our evening session, framed around the question “Can Zcash become the privacy layer for everyday digital payments?”, ran from 5:00 to 9:00 PM EAT on October 16 at Western Delicacy, Ngong Road, Nairobi. 50 people joined us. Attendees set up wallets and used shielded ZEC transactions as a ticket, and spent it on real food merchants already onboarded to accept shielded ZEC.

• Attendees: 50

• Time and place: 5:00–9:00 PM, Western Delicacy, Ngong Road, Nairobi

• Merchants accepting shielded ZEC on the night:

• Shielded payments made at the venue

• Who came: mix of ABF delegates, developers, community members locals, regulators.

• Highlights:

Developer sourcing

We treated ABF as a talent-sourcing event for the Zcash EA initiative. Using the three tiers defined in the application:

• Tier 1 · Educational: onboarded and in our community registry
• Tier 2 · Practical: engaged with the technical demos and took first steps toward a Zcash integration

Regulators and institutions

ABF convenes regulators and central-bank representatives while African frameworks are being written. We used the event to make the case that privacy and compliance can coexist, and that Zcash’s selective disclosure (view keys) lets a user prove their own transactions when they choose.

• Regulator / policymaker conversations
• Exchange and institutional conversations

Panel appearance

Beyond the booth and side event, ABF invited our East Africa lead, Sonnie, to speak as a panelist. This wasn’t part of the Premium booth package or a commitment in our application, so it’s a bonus outcome based on our lead influence on the growth of the web3 community in East Africa: Zcash was represented in the conference programme itself, in front of delegates who may never have walked past the exhibition floor.

Community growth and retention

	Before ABF	After ABF
X followers	335	460
Telegram members	179	323

111 people joined Zcash East Africa and the wider Zcash ecosystem through the activation. The virtual 3-day onboarding session is the retention mechanism: new members complete tasks that teach them how to use Zcash and how to contribute, so engagement is measured by task completion rather than attendance.

As the first step of the retention plan, we hosted an onboarding X Space for the new members on October 21, a live, low-pressure place to ask questions, hear from the team and existing community members, and get pointed to their next step in the ecosystem.

• Attendance: 36+ members tuned in live
• Host and speakers: Sonnie and Degendiva
• What we covered: Where are we now, what have we achieved, and what comes next, how to contribute
• Questions raised by new members: we had questions concerning clarification on contributions.
• Recording link: ZcashKenyaCommunity on X: "https://t.co/1DG64TMGRj" / X

What worked

• The Demo help to reinforce the beauty of private Transactions

What didn’t, and what we’d change

• Honest shortfalls against the table above, and the reason for each
• Operational issues: connectivity, footfall at the booth, timing of the side event, etc.
• we needed some translation to Swahili as a couple of attendees didn’t have strong English background we plan to create more localized guides and content in future

Next 30 days

• Virtual, task-based onboarding session for new members.
• Follow-up with the developer cohort (calls, office hours, bounty invitations)
• Merchant listings on the ZEC Map: we are yet to get a feedback from the team managing the map
• Continued monthly activity reports

Photos and media

abf day 2 zcash - Google Drive

z cash abf day 1 - Google Drive

Thank you

Thank you to the @ZCG committee and everyone who gave feedback on the application, to ABF and the World Token Summit for hosting us, to Western Delicacy and our onboarded merchants for taking real ZEC payments, and to everyone who came by the booth or joined us at the side event. We’re glad to answer any questions here.

Privacy is normal.

Zcash East Africa ·

[Michae2xl]

Overall it was great! Just a bit of constructive feedback on the booths in this area: this is the second time I’ve seen a high-cost booth with poor execution. In this case, the printing on two of the panels didn’t even look finished. For $6,000, you’d expect better quality. Another booth I saw even used a beach umbrella as part of the setup, which looked improvised. It might be worth being more selective with vendors, or putting a formal contract in place with clear quality standards for the team responsible for setup.

[Fred265]

nice work @Z.cash.EastAfrica