ZCG receives 52,500 ZEC per year (during the current halving cycle). A year ago that was worth $2,625,000 per year. Now that is worth about $24,000,000 per year. What should change, if anything, about how ZCG does its work? (Zooko)
What is Zcash’s biggest opportunity right now? (Dismad)
If you could change one thing about Zcash, what would it be and why? (frankbraun)
For Candidates: Video Guidelines
We suggest the following structure for your video:
Introduction: Who you are and why you want to be elected to ZCG.
Q&A: Clear, concise answers to the community’s questions as stated above. We encourage candidates to keep their responses brief, as we have found that shorter videos tend to receive significantly more views and engagement.
Submission: Upload your video to the platform of your choice (YouTube, Vimeo, Google Drive, etc.) and share the link in this thread.
There is no deadline to post your video although the sooner you post the sooner voters will have a chance to get to know you.You may also choose to not submit a video and take a different approach such as responding to the questions in writing on the forum.
Tip for Accessibility: We highly encourage candidates to include a written transcript or summary of their answers alongside their video link for community members who prefer to read, summarize via AI, etc.
The ZCAP vote via SIV will go live tomorrow, June 11th. We encourage voters to wait to cast their votes until all candidates have posted their videos. ZF will notify ZCAP members by email and by a forum post when the vote is live.
Zcash community: I recorded a candidate video for the June 2026 ZCG election.
We have a rare window to accelerate adoption of private digital cash. ZCG can help the ecosystem move faster with focus, accountability, and support for builders.
Paul Brigner introduces himself as the Chief Policy and Regulatory Officer at ZODL, the Zcash Open Development Lab, and explains that he has been part of the Zcash ecosystem for roughly five years. He also describes his broader background in cryptocurrency policy, technology policy, telecommunications, media, internet policy, and software development.
In response to the question about how ZCG should adapt now that its annual funding has increased significantly in dollar terms, Paul says that ZCG has already done important work and that he has personally seen the value of ZCG grants. He does not offer a broad critique of ZCG’s past operations, but argues that the committee should focus on helping the ecosystem move faster. In particular, he emphasizes adoption, visibility, awareness, ecosystem growth, and support for builders.
Paul highlights what he sees as a unique political and regulatory window for Zcash and financial privacy. From his work in Washington, D.C., he says he is seeing greater openness to privacy and crypto policy arguments across agencies and policymakers. He believes this window may not remain open for long, so Zcash should act with urgency.
On Zcash’s biggest opportunity, Paul argues that Zcash can become unstoppable private digital cash, or private encrypted money, at scale. He points to the ecosystem’s response to a recent vulnerability, as well as work on Ironwood and Tachyon, as examples of decentralized teams collaborating effectively and moving quickly. He sees these efforts as important foundations for resilience, scalability, adoption, and long-term success.
When asked what he would change about Zcash, Paul says he approaches the question with an open mind. He discusses a recent conversation about the possibility of a private stablecoin on Zcash and explains that, while his own long-term vision is for Zcash to become crypto-native private money for the world, a private stablecoin or ZSA could potentially help accelerate adoption in the nearer term.
At the same time, Paul stresses that any stablecoin-related effort would need to be pursued carefully and in a Zcash-aligned way. He does not want a stablecoin issuer, outside entity, or token to gain undue influence over Zcash, the protocol, or the ecosystem. He frames this as a complex issue that ZCG would need to evaluate thoughtfully, with open discussion and a clear focus on Zcash’s mission.
Paul closes by thanking the Zcash community and ZCAP voters for their consideration and says it would be a great honor to serve on the Zcash Community Grants Committee.
Joined RHEA Finance (a merger of Ref and Burrow Finance)
Helped define new direction: chain-abstracted liquidity solution
Built Satoshi Protocol — a BTC bridge connecting native BTC to NEAR (still in use by NEAR Intent team today)
RIA’s CEO introduced him deeper into ZK and the Zcash architecture/scaling vision
[05:17 – 06:50] | Why He’s Nominating for the Grant Committee
Recognizes Zcash as powerful technology with real growth opportunity
Key value proposition: support projects beyond funding — from proposal approval all the way to growth
Wants to help teams with:
Go-to-market strategy
Community building
Revenue definition
Product expansion & brainstorming
Goal: Bring real users and attention to Zcash, starting small and scaling
[06:50 – 07:51] | Proof of Work — Nor Wallet
Cites Noir Wallet as tangible evidence of his delivery
Built a clear go-to-market from day one
Result: ~200 unique users in 2–3 weeks
Acknowledges support from the Zcash community and ZCG Hub team
Commits to ensuring every approved project has real use cases, not just delivered products
[07:51 – 08:30] | Closing & Transparency Pledge
Reaffirms commitment to the Zcash Community Grant Committee
Pledges to disclose all conflicts of interest
Confirms he is fully doxxed — findable on X (Twitter), LinkedIn, and NEAR community channels
Here is my answer to the community question above, in non-verbal form — click the toggle to read
ZCG’s 52,500 ZEC went from ~$2.6M to ~$24M/year.
What should change?
A budget this size unlocks ambitions that were impossible at $2.6M — funding full multi-year teams instead of part-time contributors, serious wallet/UX work, security audits, and adoption/integration efforts rather than just keeping the lights on. It also raises the bar on diligence, milestone enforcement, transparency, and treasury management.
In ZEC terms, my mandate hasn’t changed, but in dollar terms we can now be far more ambitious — focusing on infrastructure growth where that will help ZEC grow faster and with better UX, and where usage and scalability will create the highest demand and attention rather than relying on price volatility itself.
What has to change is the rigor around it: more applicants means tighter diligence and milestone enforcement, releasing grant funds as the product proves it can scale - not solely giving out grants
Q2 — Dismad: Zcash’s biggest opportunity right now?
The privacy-as-a-hedge narrative and the fact ZCash is leading everything is finally landing with capital and attention, but usage hasn’t caught up to the story.
So the biggest opportunity is converting narrative into product and habit — making shielded ZEC something people actually use, not just hold as a surveillance hedge. Concretely that’s wallet quality, sync speed, mobile, DeFi and payments UX → more focus on the growth possibility with the primitive protocol in crypto as the core
Q3 — frankbraun: One thing you’d change about Zcash, and why?
The real path to mass adoption runs through privacy itself — not the token price.
Right now the market mostly treats privacy as optional, so the work isn’t convincing people that privacy matters in the abstract; it’s making the private option the default, low-friction experience so they get it without having to be sold on it first.
Adoption happens when a community values privacy as something they actually use, not just a number they’re watching. And that’s the demand that lasts — real usage, not price volatility, is what justifies investing in scalability and ultimately drives it. I would like to switch the perception of holding zec as just to take profit on the trade but also how important it is to accept zec in their daily life
Hi everyone. I’ve decided to post my responses in writing since this format was suggested as an option.
My name is Palmar, and I’ve been an active member of the Zcash community since 2022. Since 2024, I’ve been running a Zcash Club in Mexico, where I teach people from scratch how to use wallets and help them understand why Zcash is essential for a healthy society. You can check my introductory post to learn more about me. I’ll now proceed with my answers:
1- Zooko: I think that the significant increase in the fund (in fiat terms) shouldn’t lead to a radical change in how the ZCG is managed. However, I agree that some adjustments can be made to keep pace with the growth.
In the chart you shared, we can see that in Q3 2025 the capital allocation was $0.53M, while in Q4 of the same year it rose to $2.32M. All of this happened under the same committee (same structure, members, and processes), which shows that what we currently have works, is flexible, and can adapt to increases or decreases in grant demand. The allocation grew more than 4x from one quarter to the next, and everything was handled smoothly and well within the capacity of the five committee members. While there may come a point when the workload exceeds the capacity of five people, what I’m trying to highlight is that the current growth has remained within a manageable range. It’s also important to remember that while the fund has grown in fiat terms, it can also shrink, so we must be prudent with projections.
If I were to propose an improvement, I would support Batuhan’s idea of separating the evaluator structure into two sides: one for technical matters and another for community matters. I would frame it as two wings:
This would allow each wing to specialize. Regarding concerns about significantly increasing the number of committee members, we could consider adding just one more member (bringing the total to six), so each wing would have three evaluators. (Would that be too many or too few?)
This way, the technical wing would be freed from reviewing community, event, and marketing grants, allowing them to dedicate more time to thorough reviews of technical proposals for a more effective result. And if demand for technical grants increases even further, they would simply return to today’s workload, but now fully focused on technical grants. Something similar would happen with the Ecosystem Wing. When both wings coordinate well and do their jobs effectively, Zcash can soar even higher.
It’s crucial that the ZCG always leans toward appointing prominent community members who have demonstrated honesty, a strong track record, and the ability to help Zcash fulfill its mission. Ultimately, the amount of budget allocated each quarter will depend on the quantity and quality of the grant proposals received and approved. This responsibility falls on the judgment of the committee members, which is why it’s so important to elect people who understand Zcash in its full scope and are aligned with the project to make the best decisions. I believe the current committee meets this standard.
According to Zcash Grant Hub, technical grants outnumber non-technical ones, so this should be taken into consideration.
2- Dismad: The prolonged price decline and the inability to surpass Monero as the number one privacy cryptocurrency (despite Zcash offering superior privacy) has been a heavy burden we’ve carried for a long time. Personally, most of the attacks I received as a Zcasher came from these two points.
ZEC dropped to $20 amid public support from highly influential figures with significant capital — Naval, Balaji, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, Grayscale, and even Snowden himself — and none of them managed to turn the tide. Having some of the best developers and cryptographers deliver Halo2 and Orchard wasn’t enough either. But all of that was necessary and laid the foundation we’re building on today.
Fortunately, today’s reality is completely different. At the time of writing, ZEC is at $437 USD, it remains in the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap (excluding USDT and USDC), and the market itself values it above Monero as the leading privacy coin. Something has changed, and it might feel like the dream has finally come true, but believing that would be falling into a trap.
The great opportunity Zcash has right now is to legitimately reclaim the original mission of cryptocurrencies that began with Bitcoin. Zcash was designed for this, and it has now gained enough attention and recognition to make that claim. Zcash can be seen both as an asset that will appreciate in value and is worth holding in a U.S. treasury, and as a powerful tool for financial security and privacy, for example, for a journalist in Mexico who is being persecuted and threatened by drug cartels or corrupt politicians.
Freelancers in Latam already use USDT to receive payments and buy products, but without privacy. So we must keep pushing until ordinary people in most corners of the world use Zcash and ZEC to buy a cookie, clothes, or pay their electricity bill. Every time someone sends or receives a Zcash transaction, they are exercising their human rights. If the community can align — each person from their own position — to position Zcash as a banner of freedom with the right arguments, we will win. The criteria used when approving or rejecting grants in the ZCG can help enormously in this regard.
3- frankbraun: Rather than changing, I thnik we need to further increase the decentralization of both the network and the community. I don’t see decentralization as an end in itself, but as a means to achieve censorship resistance, which is essential to fulfilling Zcash’s mission.
When Josh took over leadership at ECC, he took important steps, such as relinquishing the Zcash trademark agreement. However, I feel that momentum was later lost. I believe we should pick up that direction again, because Zcash must remain neutral and censorship-resistant to fulfill its purpose. That is extremely important.
Thanks to everyone for reading and considering my thoughts when voting.
I’ll share my responses here for the questions. For some reason, I’m deeply attracted to and passionate about Zcash. I can’t keep my mind away from it. It’s something I constantly think about.
ZCG receives 52,500 ZEC per year (during the current halving cycle). A year ago that was worth $2,625,000 per year. Now that is worth about $24,000,000 per year. What should change, if anything, about how ZCG does its work? (Zooko)
Hope the fund size can grow to 240M a year until it expires. However, it can shrink to 2.4M a year (very unlikely). ZCG should focus on funding efforts towards making Zcash more secure, scalable, adoption and shielded pool growth. Larger treasury gives some flexibility but we still need to be conservative in allocating to high-quality projects and people with proven track record. I’d focus and reorient the strategy of ZCG based on what’s most important now and in the future. Right now, it’s all about Security and regaining people’s trust. I’m sure ZCG can make a dent.
What is Zcash’s biggest opportunity right now? (Dismad)
Biggest opportunity right now is becoming the most private post-quantum money that’s formally verified. Offshore wealth is the biggest TAM that’s on the horizon for Zcash. Which requires deploying FROST and integrating shielded Zcash into custodians.
If you could change one thing about Zcash, what would it be and why? (frankbraun)
Education. Zcash is still unknown to most of humanity. That’s why I consider Zcash journey to be 0.001% complete. However, I’m confident we will make the needle move and make Zcash even more successful.
I’m going to edit this post with a quick video introducing myself, but wanted to provide answers to everyone on the items asked. Feel free to reply with questions and/or feedback!
Also, you can reach out to me across socials as my handle is: @Uscmigs
ZCG receives 52,500 ZEC per year (during the current halving cycle). A year ago that was worth $2,625,000 per year. Now that is worth about $24,000,000 per year. What should change, if anything, about how ZCG does its work? (Zooko)
ZCG is designed as an internal funnel for helping to promote and build projects in ZEC. The awesome and challenging thing is that as monetary amounts get larger, so does the amount of grifting and scammy behaviors. The ZCG remit should be the same as it has been, reviewing and conducting due diligence on projects, and reviewing alignment with core teams to make decisions based on needs that will drive growth. It’s hard to put what that target amount you’re looking to distribute, as you’d want to keep a high threshold, but with the monetary amount in the budget, there should be more interaction with projects that might be normally be on the fence and leveraging the ZCG to help them tighten up the scope and deliverables of their grant application so that its a win-win for the community and the proposers. I see the ZCG potentially playing a larger role in this given the current monetary amounts could accelerate growth/development. This is all to say that the bar and threshold for approving grants doesn’t get lowered to maintain the reputation and credibility of the ZCG.
What is Zcash’s biggest opportunity right now? (Dismad)
ZCash’s biggest opportunity comes in two parts and its around getting more users and adoption. This is a broad answer, but the tech behind ZCash is insanely impressive and what brings “normies” to new ecosystems and not only retains them, but grows their interest and investment for in time and financially is minimize friction for end users. The ZODL wallet is a key stepping stone highlighting how it’s ease of use and ability to send and bridge w/ Near intents makes it so easy for users. They don’t neet a CLI, they don’t need complicated workflows, and it’s responsive and intuitive for users. I think the next big hurdle is working with teams to not only build cool tech, but also focus on what users want and need to drive growth and adoption. Marketing also plays a part of this, but if you look at the steps to drive adoption its: good tech → easy to use front ends → tasteful marketing to the targeted user group. There are a lot of cool things like FROST that fall in that good tech bucket, but the focus on making it easy and accessible and showcasing it is where growth and adoption really pick up.
A close second would be focusing on scaling, but with Tachyon on the doorstep, I would still choose adoption-enabling means as the biggest opportunity.
If you could change one thing about Zcash, what would it be and why? (frankbraun)
One observation given the structural changes to some of the larger entities at the start of the year (ECC/Shielded Labs/ZODL) is to see other dev shops, organizations, and groups grow their sphere of influence in ZCash so that they have the ability to generate revenue and be sustainable and also provide another voice at the table when it comes to development directions and influencing changes to the blockchain. If you look across other ecosystems, as they grow, the amount of other strongly led teams starts to build up and meet the market and end users where they want.
Zcash community — here is my candidate video for the June 2026 ZCG election.
One note before anything else: the face in the video is an AI avatar, not mine. The words are entirely my own. We are in a privacy ecosystem, and choosing not to put my own face on the internet felt like the consistent thing to do.
Who I am. I am a builder. I have been around encryption since 2017, I run OTC transactions worldwide, and I fell properly in love with Zcash after a real de-anonymization problem hit my close environment. Since then I have been all-in on the privacy idea. For the past months I have been building ZChat, a shielded messenger, and we hope to show the community what we have made within a month or two - maybe alongside the Ironwood update.
Running for ZCG means I give up the ability to apply for grants for my own projects. I am fine with that.
My answers to the three questions:
1. ZCG’s budget grew roughly 10x — from about 2.6M to around 24M ZEC-value per year. What should change?
A 10x increase in resources should be matched by real growth on three fronts: grow the Community Grants team’s capacity, grow the number of projects supported (guided by ecosystem input), and consider bringing forward next-year installments for already-approved projects so strong teams can start building now instead of waiting. The goal is to put the increased funding to work, not to let it sit.
2. What is Zcash’s biggest opportunity right now?
The worldwide push toward KYC and identity-everywhere. Every application - social, AI, finance - now asks for your ID and wants to know everything about you. With the volume of data leaks and AI-driven vulnerabilities we see, that exposure is dangerous, and not only from governments. This is Zcash’s opening: to be the privacy default for people who want to close their digital trail, while staying easy to use, fast, and reliable for the mainstream.
3. If you could change one thing about Zcash, what would it be?
The clarity of the ecosystem’s structure. Between Shielded Labs, Zodl, Community Grants, the Foundation, the forum, and others, the ecosystem is healthy but hard to navigate - especially for newcomers and devs trying to understand who does what. I would push for more unified communication and a clearer shared picture, while keeping the system decentralized and community-governed. No single head office, but an easier front door.
Hi everyone. I’m Daniel Goh, gorusys on GitHub and the forum.
I’m a systems engineer. The last few years working in the Zcash ecosystem. I’ve been buliding zecvault — a non-custodial vault for people who want to hold ZEC without handing it to a custodian. I built zcashgranthub — grant governance tooling that handles proposal submission, on-chain tracking, and round management.
I’m running for ZCG because I’ve seen the grant process from a builder’s perspective — what makes a proposal credible, where scope goes wrong, what accountability looks like after money changes hands. The committee needs engineers who can evaluate technical proposals with depth. That’s what I’m offering.
Here are my answers.
1. ZCG receives 52,500 ZEC per year (during the current halving cycle). A year ago that was worth $2,625,000 per year. Now that is worth about $24,000,000 per year. What should change, if anything, about how ZCG does its work? (Zooko)
My view is that more capital should not simply mean more grants. It should mean better strategy.
First, ZCG should become more proactive. While ZCG utilizes two primary funding mechanisms—Open Grants and RFPs—our current capital allocation is heavily weighted toward Open Grants, leaving RFPs vastly underutilized. Instead of only waiting for applications, we should identify the ecosystem’s most important gaps and actively encourage solutions. A ninefold increase in available capital should be matched by more deliberate grant design, clearer priorities, and stronger accountability. The goal is not to fund more projects; it is to fund the projects that matter most.
Second, I would prioritize talent development and developer growth. Zcash has made meaningful progress in expanding adoption, but we still need more builders, researchers, and technical contributors. A larger budget gives us the opportunity to invest in developer education, mentorship, training programs, and ecosystem onboarding. Stronger talent pipelines ultimately lead to stronger teams and higher-quality grant applications.
Third, security deserves greater attention. ZCG recently closed its vulnerability bounty program after it became overwhelmed by AI-generated and low-quality submissions. While that decision is understandable, bug bounties remain an important security channel. The Orchard issue was discovered through a structured audit, demonstrating the value of systematic security reviews. Audits and bug bounties catch different classes of problems, and a mature ecosystem should support both.
Finally, I would emphasize discipline. A larger budget naturally creates pressure to deploy more capital, but I believe that pressure should be resisted. I would rather fund eight high-quality projects with clear milestones, measurable outcomes, and strong accountability than twenty projects with vague goals simply because the funding is available. ZCG’s goal is not to simply exhaust the treasury, but to make prudent and necessary investments. If a budget surplus remains after these core allocations, we should conduct thorough research to ensure the remaining capital is deployed efficiently.
2. What is Zcash’s biggest opportunity right now? (Dismad)
I believe Zcash’s biggest opportunity right now is to establish itself as the institutionally accessible standard for financial privacy.
The institutional door is opening. Zcash remains available on major regulated platforms and has features like viewing keys that allow selective disclosure when needed. While other privacy-focused projects are facing increasing regulatory pressure, Zcash has a real opportunity to demonstrate that strong privacy and regulatory compliance are not mutually exclusive. The world is moving toward Zcash’s original argument. Financial surveillance is expanding, concerns about privacy are becoming mainstream, and more people are recognizing that privacy is a normal requirement for a healthy financial system.
The opportunity is not simply to be another cryptocurrency. The opportunity is for Zcash to become the default privacy layer for the digital economy. But I think that window is limited, and we need to execute with urgency while it is open.
3. If you could change one thing about Zcash, what would it be and why? (frankbraun)
If I could change one thing, I would focus aggressively on transforming Zcash into the default, privacy-preserving payment layer for autonomous AI agents.
Public, transparent ledgers are completely incompatible with autonomous business logic. If an AI agent operates on a transparent blockchain, its proprietary strategies, operational margins, and trade secrets are permanently exposed to competitors and malicious front-running bots. AI models don’t just need digital rails; they require informational opacity to protect their data advantages.
By prioritizing developer tooling—like Python/TypeScript SDKs and MCP integrations, Zcash can anchor itself as the indispensable financial infrastructure for the multi-billion-dollar autonomous AI economy.
Thanks for the time.
Zooko’s question is the one I keep thinking about. Nine times more budget is genuinely hard to govern well — I don’t think we’ve solved it yet, and I’d like to help solve it.
I’ll be in the forum if you want to go deeper on any of this.
My name is Valentina (Valens). I work in security research, software engineering, applied cryptography, and evaluating emerging technology infrastructure across blockchain and other systems. I’ve also contributed to educational tooling and research around post-quantum cryptography, long-term infrastructure resilience, and security considerations surrounding AI agents interacting with blockchain systems.
I’m running for ZCG because privacy-preserving technology is more important than ever, and I believe my experience assessing technical architectures, infrastructure projects, security considerations, and emerging technologies can bring a useful perspective when evaluating opportunities across the ecosystem.
If elected, I will focus on technical credibility, ecosystem impact, careful capital allocation, and long-term sustainability for Zcash.
ZCG receives 52,500 ZEC per year (during the current halving cycle). A year ago that was worth $2,625,000 per year. Now that is worth about $24,000,000 per year. What should change, if anything, about how ZCG does its work? (Zooko)
A much larger treasury in USD terms is both an opportunity and a responsibility. Leaving tens of millions sitting idle indefinitely is not ideal, but neither is spending simply to avoid that outcome.
I believe ZCG should maintain the disciplined evaluation process that has served the ecosystem well while becoming more proactive in attracting and supporting strong proposals. That could include clearer proposal guidance, targeted RFPs for known ecosystem needs, stronger structures for larger grants, and more active engagement with builders who may not otherwise consider applying.
A larger treasury should not lower the bar for funding decisions. More capital gives us the opportunity to support larger and more ambitious projects while remaining disciplined about how resources are allocated.
I think the goal isn’t to spend every available dollar. The goal is to deploy capital effectively into projects that meaningfully advance Zcash’s privacy, usability, security, and adoption. The recent Orchard vulnerability response is a good example of the type of high-impact work the ecosystem should continue prioritizing. As the treasury grows, I believe there is an opportunity to revisit sustainable funding mechanisms for security research through bug bounties, security grants, audits, and other initiatives that strengthen ecosystem resilience.
What is Zcash’s biggest opportunity right now? (Dismad)
Zcash already possesses world-class privacy technology. The opportunity now is translating that technology into products and experiences that people choose because they are useful, intuitive, and trustworthy.
ZCG can help accelerate that transition by supporting better wallets, smoother shielded payment experiences, stronger developer tooling, and applications that bring privacy to everyday users. That includes both infrastructure for builders and consumer-facing products that use Zcash’s privacy capabilities behind the scenes.
Continued investment in research, security, and protocol development remains essential. At the same time, ZCG has an opportunity to help powerful privacy technology reach more people through products they genuinely enjoy using.
Security and usability together are what drive sustainable adoption. People ultimately place their trust where they see competence, reliability, and a strong security culture. The recent Orchard vulnerability discovery and remediation demonstrated both the strength of Zcash’s research community and the ecosystem’s ability to respond quickly and effectively to critical issues. Maintaining that reputation for security and resilience is itself a major long-term opportunity for Zcash.
If you could change one thing about Zcash, what would it be and why? (frankbraun)
I would make strong privacy feel invisible and effortless to the end user.
The technologies we use every day fade into the background. People don’t think about TLS when they browse the web, and privacy should eventually feel the same way. Users should choose Zcash-powered applications because they’re fast, reliable, and easy to use, with strong privacy built in by default.
This doesn’t mean slowing core protocol work, scalability improvements, or post-quantum research. Those (of course) remain critically important. But reducing the friction between powerful privacy technology and everyday usability is one of the highest-impact opportunities available to the ecosystem today.
Thank you to everyone who took the time to read and participate in this process. I appreciate the thoughtful questions from the community and the opportunity to share my perspective. Regardless of the outcome, I’m excited to see the Zcash ecosystem continue to grow and I look forward to contributing however I can. Thank you for your consideration.
Hello friends! For community consideration, my video with captions of my interview with ZK AV Club in Berlin during Berlin Blockchain week answering the 3 questions.
-- Written Summary –
#1Increased funds: Invest in infrastructure.
With the current expanded funding available to ZCG, it could fund longer-commitment projects that provide continued support. Projects like Pacu for devrel and ZK AV Club for media are examples of not just larger projects, but sustainment projects on a longer time scale. I would also love to see developer tooling projects, things similar to Hardhat for ETH that allow for local simulated blockchains. Or a Remix-style API playground for checking calls in a simple UI with examples and feedback. These invest in Zcash’s infrastructure while the budget is higher, enabling continued development in the ecosystem later on with reduced technical burden.
#2The Opportunity: The Debanked
People are getting kicked off the financial system faster and faster. Zcash can be the alternative. Video games with adult content getting banned off Steam, independent gig workers dropped by their payment apps, people getting debanked because of regulatory pressure, not because they did anything illegal. Those are exactly the people a censorship-resistant private money is for.
And getting debanked isn’t just losing a payment app. You lose the whole stack: income, paying for groceries, payroll, invoicing, accounting, tax records, the ability to actually run a business. CipherPay is doing a great job as a point-of-sale system, which is a great next step. I know it’s the boring back-office layer, but that’s the stuff that lets someone operate on Zcash, not just receive a payment on it. That’s the opportunity: being the financial system for people the current one is actively pushing out.
#3Change about Zcash: Add Smart Contracts
From my experience building systems in ETH-world and Zcash-world, it’s harder in Zcash without smart contracts. Something as simple as a recurring payment, Netflix or OnlyFans, is impossible when every transaction requires a human button push (or custodial wallets).
Back to #2 and the whole-system opportunity: subscriptions, escrow, recurring payroll, conditional payments. These all require programmatic handling of funds. There are real custody tradeoffs here and I’m not pretending otherwise. Consider Aztec and Railgun, both bolting privacy onto the programmable world. Railgun does private DeFi through smart contracts on ETH chains, and Aztec is building programmable privacy as an L2 with its own private-contract language. Their privacy isn’t as strong as Zcash’s, but they get the functionality, and that’s the tradeoff people get to choose right now. I’d rather we were the option that doesn’t make them choose.
I need to ask about the ZCAP list for Brazil. I sent a message on X days before the election, but I don’t think anyone saw it. I need to verify the list to see if mine matches 1:1. Who can I talk to?
Just to close the loop here, we talked to @Michae2xl about his inquiry and cleared up the confusion. Anyone can see the list of who is on ZCAP on this public list.
Good afternoon, ZCG members, ZCAP members, and interested forum members,
For privacy reasons, and also due to being present during the Berlin Blockchain Week, I’ve opted for a written explanation of my standpoints so as not to be a blocker within the ongoing application process. (Saying hi from the ZCash Spati!)
My background can be found here for those curious, as my main focus is on the answers for the above questions.
ZCG receives 52,500 ZEC per year (during the current halving cycle). A year ago that was worth $2,625,000 per year. Now that is worth about $24,000,000 per year. What should change, if anything, about how ZCG does its work? (Zooko)
The current ZEC price gains allow us to scale up operations to reach new goals; however, as we’ve seen in blockchain markets, we can’t rely on the prices always being here, or continuously growing.
We also shouldn’t stay stagnant and not play within the rising awareness of ZCash.
As such, I’d see a few possible changes which would support the ZCG on a long-term basis:
Sustainability
Within roughly 1.1 yrs (≈ 2028), at the same spending level as 2025 (10 703 ZEC (≈ 4.64M USD)), and utilising a 7% return rate, we would be able to have a treasury setup that utilises the current ZCG treasury holdings and covers current spending. (10 703 ZEC)
Increasing our spending by 50% would allow the treasury to be self-sustaining at a 7% rate in 2.8 yrs.
On the sustainable tab of the dashboard, the model lets you experiment with additional spending rates alongside ZEC rates.
(Current data 03/06)
Spending levels
Currently, the blockchain/crypto space is going through a bear market, which makes our existing funds and treasury even more valuable to deploy.
It would make sense to allow an increased spending target that aligns with token growth, so as not to eat into the principal as much. However, we should make sure that, along with increased spending rates, we also maintain a tight grip on milestone delivery plans and success metrics (payouts for goals or overachievement, for example).
–
What is ZCash’sbiggest opportunity right now? (Dismad)
I’m being careful not to put my own ideas and perspectives up front, as the power of ZCG lies in the community’s broader perspective. However, as the question directly involves my own perspectives:
I believe ZCash should continue its legacy of technical excellence and position itself to reach a mainstream level.
Cash → Private Digital Cash
Cash, as in fiat cash, is increasingly being phased out. Even in cash-heavy cities such as Berlin, more and more places are becoming card-only.
What building blocks do the builders and marketers need to integrate ZCash payments so it’s as easy for your average Joe as paying with Apple Pay?
Today, we live in a world with LLMs; the opportunity for non-technical people to be an “ev” and bring their ideas into reality is higher than ever.
Will this allow more people to use ZCash, without them knowing how exactly it works?
–
How would I like to see this being executed?
Form partnerships with (non-KYC)-based payment systems, and push the community into markets where there is a noticeable, large-scale (number-wise) increase in crypto spending and market share to capture. (Argentina, Nigeria, Korea,…)
Continue satellite events and coordinate them with the community and their products to serve as a ZCG showcase (which becomes a stable marketing push machine over time).
Be present at core industry events to stay aligned at the technical level; however, allow these satellite events to produce new highlights that are unique within the industry.
User Feedback Loops
I would also like ZCash and its community to do more user-based (anonymous) feedback loops. Thinking about these outcomes:
Is what we are building relevant to you
What are we not building that is relevant to you
What’s annoying about ZCash
How easy or hard is it to onboard your friends to ZCash
These aren’t limited outcomes; I’d like to create these feedback loops, as they can save us quite some resources in the long run. It’s possible new perspectives arise.
3 If you could change one thing about Zcash, what would it be and why? (frankbraun)
Currently, I’m noticing a large share of the spending going to technical initiatives.
I would like to see increased ecosystem growth aligned with product integrations. ZCash has a fantastic reputation; it would be good to see a focus on increasing ZCash’s visibility among non-experts.
Example: Monero utilising cake-wallet to create payments in supermarkets
ZCash has a strong current position due to the privacy narrative and current market forces. We need a balanced force at both the technical and human adaptation levels.
To lead from the above information to my main answer to your question:
Adaptation: Increased progress, and practical, measurable results.
