By Steve Ngok, Chief Strategy Officer, DoraHacks
What Is the Privacy Thesis Actually About?
A fundamental principle: individuals and organizations should have the right to protect their identity and information when it matters.
This is both a basic freedom and a technical requirement.
A freedom, because financial privacy isn’t a luxury. It’s what allows a dissident to receive donations without persecution, a business to pay suppliers without exposing strategy, a person to hold savings without becoming a target. Privacy makes participation in the economy safe.
A technical requirement, because without it, decentralization is incomplete. What good is a censorship-resistant network if every transaction is surveilled? What good is self-custody if your balance is broadcast to the world? True sovereignty requires confidentiality.
This is what Zcash has built. Eight years of production zk-SNARKs. Shielded transactions that work. Viewing keys for selective disclosure. A network as decentralized as Bitcoin, with privacy as strong as cash.
The infrastructure is ready. What’s missing is the next layer, and that’s where the opportunity lies. Let’s dive into some ideas to build on Zcash.
The Big One: A Native Stablecoin on Zcash
This is the highest-conviction idea in this piece.
The Gap
Zcash has the most mature privacy technology in crypto. It doesn’t have a stablecoin.
This is like having a highway system with no cars. World-class infrastructure, crippled utility.
Think about what people actually use crypto for: payments, remittances, payroll, treasury management, commerce. Every one of these needs stable value.
$ZEC is a great asset, but its volatility makes it unsuitable for these use cases. Every “privacy payment” use case is actually a “private stablecoin payment” use case.
Why This Doesn’t Exist Yet
- Regulatory fear — Issuers worried that “private stablecoin” would trigger enforcement
- Liquidity chicken-and-egg — No stablecoin means no DeFi means no liquidity means no stablecoin
- Technical complexity — Issuing on a shielded chain requires new approaches to reserves and redemption
But the landscape has shifted:
- Regulatory clarity: Viewing keys solve compliance. An issuer can give regulators full visibility into their shielded pool while users stay private from everyone else. This is actually better than transparent chains — you get auditability without exposing user data.
- Cross-chain liquidity: Zashi + NEAR Intents means ZEC can already swap to USDC. The pipes exist. A native stablecoin would be more efficient, but the liquidity bootstrapping problem is solvable.
- Demand is screaming: Every Zcash user, every privacy-focused business, every enterprise exploring confidential transactions — they all need stable value. The market is waiting.
The Opportunity
A regulated, USD-backed stablecoin issued natively on Zcash with full shielded support.
How it works:
- Mint: User sends USD to issuer (bank transfer, wire). Issuer mints equivalent stablecoins directly to the user’s shielded address.
- Transact: User sends shielded stablecoins to anyone. Sender, receiver, and amount are all hidden. Transaction settles in ~75 seconds, fees under $0.01.
- Redeem: User sends stablecoins back to issuer’s known address. The issuer verifies receipt (they have viewing keys for their own pool), and sends USD to the user’s bank.
- Compliance:
- Issuer maintains full visibility of their issuance/redemption via viewing keys
- Users can provide viewing keys to auditors/regulators on request
- AML/KYC happens at the on/off ramp, not at every transaction (same as cash)
Why Zcash vs. other privacy approaches?
The Builder Profile
This is not a weekend hackathon project. This requires:
- Regulatory expertise (money transmitter licenses, compliance frameworks)
- Banking relationships (USD custody, wire infrastructure)
- Deep Zcash protocol knowledge
- Significant capital for reserves
Who should build this:
- Existing stablecoin issuers looking to expand (Circle? Paxos?)
- Crypto-native teams with regulatory experience
- Traditional finance players entering crypto
The prize: Whoever issues the first credible USD stablecoin on Zcash will own the private payments market. There’s no second place.
Why Private Stablecoins Will Win
Today, USDT on Tron dominates. It’s fast, cheap, and has deep liquidity. So why would anyone switch?
Because transparency is a bug, not a feature.
Consider what happens when you use USDT on Tron or Solana today:
- Your entire balance is public. Anyone with your address knows exactly how much you hold.
- Your transaction history is permanent. Every payment, every counterparty, forever visible.
- You become a target. Large holders are identified and exploited — phishing, extortion, physical threats.
- Businesses can’t use it seriously. No CFO will run payroll or treasury operations on a chain where competitors see everything.
The current stablecoin giants have a fundamental ceiling: they can never serve users who need privacy — which is eventually everyone.
The Zcash advantage in 3–5 years:
Tron won the first era of stablecoins by being cheap and fast. The next era will be won by being cheap, fast, and private.
Privacy isn’t a niche. It’s the missing feature that unlocks the next 100M users — the ones who won’t put their financial lives on a public ledger.
Beyond the Dollar
A private USD stablecoin is the starting point, not the end state.
Once the model is proven — regulated issuance, shielded transactions, viewing key compliance — the same playbook extends to other currencies:
- Private EUR for European commerce
- Private SGD for Southeast Asian trade corridors
- Private GBP, CHF, JPY… each market has the same need
The dollar comes first because it has the deepest liquidity and clearest regulatory path. But the real vision is private fiat rails for the entire global economy — every major currency, shielded by default, compliant by design.
First the dollar. Then the world.
Other High-Conviction Ideas
1. Privacy Payroll
The problem: Pay employees on-chain, publish their salaries to the world.
The solution: Shielded payroll. Company treasury in Zcash shielded pool. Batch payments to employee addresses. Amounts invisible to everyone except employer and employee.
Why now: Remote work + crypto payments + salary transparency backlash = perfect storm. Companies want this.
Builder profile: HR-tech founders, payroll SaaS teams, crypto-native companies.
2. Confidential Commerce Gateway
The problem: Merchants accepting crypto expose their entire transaction history. Competitors see revenue. Customers see other customers.
The solution: BTCPay Server, but private. Shielded checkout. Instant settlement. Optional conversion to stablecoin (once it exists).
Why now: E-commerce crypto adoption is growing, but merchants hate the fishbowl.
Builder profile: Payment infrastructure engineers, e-commerce SaaS developers.
3. Enterprise Treasury Management
The problem: Corporate crypto holdings are public. Activist investors front-run. Competitors gauge financial health.
The solution: Shielded corporate treasury with FROST multi-sig (threshold signatures for governance). CFO generates viewing keys for quarterly audits.
Why now: More companies hold crypto. None want their balance sheet on Etherscan.
Builder profile: Enterprise custody providers, CFO-focused fintech.
4. ZK Credentials
The problem: Proving identity requires revealing data. Prove you’re over 21 → show birthdate. Prove employment → reveal employer.
The solution: Zero-knowledge credentials. Issuer (government, employer) issues ZK-compatible credential. User proves attributes without revealing underlying data.
Why now: The same zk-SNARK infrastructure that powers Zcash can power identity. The primitives are ready.
Builder profile: Identity specialists, government tech, HR platforms.
Conclusion
The privacy infrastructure is built. Zcash has spent eight years proving that shielded transactions work at scale, with regulatory optionality, and real security.
What’s missing is the application layer — and above all, stable value.
A native stablecoin on Zcash is the unlock. It transforms privacy from a niche concern into a default feature of money. It makes every use case in this article viable at scale.
The opportunity is open. The technology is ready.
Build it.
DoraHacks supports builders in the Zcash ecosystem. For grants, hackathons, or partnership inquiries, visit dorahacks.io.
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