Zcash Community Grants 531: a second three-week privacy developers residency

Ogasky, team lead of Zcash Ghana, posted a Zcash Community Grants application to the Zcash forum on 2 November 2026, asking for $39,990 to run a second edition of the Zcash Privacy Developers Residency with ZOERDHUB from 1 to 21 December 2026. The application is waiting for ZCG review. The first reply questioned the first edition's results and the budget, and on 6 November Ogasky split the payments into three milestones.

What it changes

The plan is to bring 20 developers together in person for three weeks, with facilitators and other participants joining virtually. The curriculum covers 12 modules, including Zcash architecture, wallet development, shielded payments, SDKs, security and testing, and open-source contributions. Residents are expected to build privacy-focused applications, and sessions are to be recorded and shared.

The application identifies three budget categories: $4,210 for hardware and software, $24,380 for services, and $11,400 for compensation. Costs include $4,000 for 20 portable Zcash nodes at $200 each; $210 for 21 days of internet; $2,400 for facilitators, at $200 for each of the 12 modules; $6,300 for the facility at $300 per day; and $12,600 for meals for 20 residents over 21 days. The services budget also includes $2,000 for publicity, $500 for 50 shirts, and $580 for a demo day. Compensation includes a $3,000 project bounty pool and $8,400 for four team members, two from each organization, at $100 per person per day for 21 days.

Startup funding of $4,210 pays for configuring the nodes and the internet subscription before the residency starts. The revised application then has three milestones: $2,500 by 1 December 2026 (promotion, selecting residents, printing, internet, developer environments, handing out nodes and shirts, checking residents in); $2,400 by 8 December (all module lectures delivered and recorded); and $30,880 by 21 December (project building, introductions to ecosystem projects, the demo day, bounty awards, and accommodation and meals for the 21 days). Each milestone includes a report posted online. As first posted, the application put $35,780 behind a single milestone due 31 December 2026 whose deliverable was a residency report.

The success metrics are at least three completed privacy projects, delivery of all 12 modules, all sessions recorded and posted online, every resident able to run a personal Zebra or Zakura node without their computer crashing, and every resident onboarded to the Zcash global community.

The grant would go to Zcash Ghana and ZOERDHUB, and both have a stake in it: the $8,400 compensation line pays their own team members, and ZOERDHUB is to provide the residency facility, accommodation, workspaces and node infrastructure, with the facility budgeted at $300 a day. The application does not say how the grant is divided between them.

The proposer says the second edition changes the first edition's format by adding project bounties, paying facilitators, accommodating special meal requests, improving power reliability, providing each resident a portable node, and completing lectures before project-building begins. Ogasky says the portable devices address computer crashes during node installation in the first edition.

The case for it

The proposal argues that more developers should build Zcash privacy applications for local needs in Africa. Ogasky cites three outcomes from the first edition: ZOERDPAY, ZOERDWALLET, and portable Zcash nodes. He says the first edition included 15 participants from Ghana, Nigeria, and Togo, and that some participants later contributed to ecosystem projects and earned task bounties.

On the budget, Ogasky says the first residency ran on donated accommodation, meals, workspace and internet, with facilitators who taught for free; that facilitators with Zcash experience were hard to find without pay; and that the lack of a bounty pool limited the number of projects. He also says the venue is less expensive than alternatives because of the organizers' relationship with its owners.

In describing the aim, Ogasky writes, "Africa should not only consume privacy technology, Africa should build and contribute to privacy technology."

The objections

Hey_6ixx asked for public repositories and commit histories for ZOERDPAY and ZOERDWALLET, what the 15 first-edition developers have done since, and where the first edition was held. Reviewing Zcash Ghana's April to August reports, they wrote: "I couldn’t find a single hands-on developer session in five months of funded reports." They asked whether the $4,000 in nodes duplicates hardware Zcash Ghana already has and the node infrastructure ZOERDHUB is to supply, what each paid team member does, who the paid facilitators are, and whether there is a spec for the $200 node. On structure they wrote: "$35,780 sits behind one milestone whose only deliverable is a report." They proposed tying payments to resident repositories, deployed projects and 90-day retention.

Ogasky replied that the first edition was not funded by ZCG and that most answers were already in the application. tobey wrote: "I don’t see any answer to the questions". In a second reply, Ogasky said the first edition used a 32 GB RAM, 1 TB machine supplied by the venue, that the privacy server Hey_6ixx asked about was not ZCG-funded, and that the milestones would be split into smaller deliverables, which he said on 6 November had been done. The thread does not yet show the repositories, the facilitators' names or a node specification.

Where it stands

The application was posted for forum discussion on 2 November 2026 and labelled Ready For ZCG Review on GitHub the same day. It is still open, and no ZCG decision appears on the application or in the thread as of 7 November 2026. The application form states that the forum post is required for ZCG to discuss and vote on the grant.