Privacy grants: crypto funding for Zcash, Monero and Aleo

Zcash and Monero: the privacy-coin funders

The two largest privacy coins both fund development through community-run programs, but they work very differently.

Zcash Community Grants

Zcash Community Grants is a five-person committee elected by the Zcash community. You apply through a GitHub form, post the application on the Zcash Community Forum for at least a week of comment, and the committee votes in its bi-weekly meeting and publishes minutes with its reasoning.

Budgets are set in USD and paid in ZEC or USD by milestone, often with a startup payment first. Grants range from a few thousand dollars for events and content to six-figure, year-long engineering programs; the largest in our data is $750,000. It funds wallets, hardware wallet support, shielded payments, SDKs, light clients, core development, audits and education.

Monero CCS

The Monero CCS (Community Crowdfunding System) is crowdfunding, not a committee grant. You publish a proposal, the community discusses it, and once the Core Team sees rough consensus the proposal opens for donations in XMR. The Core Team holds the money in escrow and releases it as you complete milestones.

Funding is not guaranteed. You have to build support for your own proposal, and a proposal can sit in "Funding Required" for months. Rules are strict: all work must be permissively licensed from the start, you must not put your own donation address in the proposal, and translation proposals are currently not allowed. Most recent proposals pay developers for three months of work on the Monero codebase, on Cuprate (a Rust Monero node) or on related tools, and FCMP++ work is among the listed priorities.

MAGIC Monero Fund

The MAGIC Monero Fund is run by a five-member committee elected by the Monero community, inside MAGIC Grants, a US 501(c)(3) public charity. You can ask for a direct grant of up to $55,000, ask to have your project listed for community donations, or both. It funds Monero research, cryptography, wallets, audits, fuzzing and education.

The fund prefers to pay in XMR but will pay in BTC, USD or other liquid currencies on request. You can apply under a pseudonym, but you must identify yourself to MAGIC Grants and pass ID, tax and sanctions checks before payout. See Monero grants for both Monero programs side by side.

Privacy-first networks

These networks fund apps and tools that use their own privacy technology:

• Aleo Developer Grants: up to $100,000 by milestone for open-source apps on Aleo, a private and programmable layer 1: private payments and payroll, identity with selective disclosure, games with private state and private DeFi. Developer work only.
• Horizen Builder Ecosystem Fund: up to $150,000 in USDC for apps where privacy is a working feature, on an EVM chain built on Base. It favors teams using Vela, its confidential compute layer, or zkVerify, and its RFPs ask for a private borrow-lend protocol and private agentic trading vaults.
• Nym Squad League: Build with Nym grants for fully open-source tools that use the Nym mixnet, up to 100,000 NYM per project, about $2,700 at the October 2026 NYM price. The Spring 2026 season paid 824,397 NYM across 59 contributions.
• Shutter DAO Impact Pilot: $1,000 to $3,000 in USDC and SHU for scoped work on Shutter's encrypted mempool, which hides pending transactions until they are included in a block, and on private voting. Round 1 closed on October 9, 2026; Round 2, for retroactive grants on work already done, launches on November 16, 2026 with $7,000 plus unused Round 1 funds.
• Kusama Vision Bounties: Web3 Foundation bounties for ZK identity, private governance and private DeFi on Kusama, a Proof of Personhood bounty for proving you are a unique human without revealing who you are, and art projects on privacy and surveillance, typically up to $10,000.

For the zero-knowledge side of this list, our guide to ZK grants goes further.

Bitcoin privacy funders

Bitcoin has its own set of privacy funders, and they pay mainly for open-source protocol and wallet work:

• OpenSats funds on-chain privacy such as Payjoin, Silent Payments and CoinJoin tools; its spring 2026 call asked specifically for proposals on Bitcoin base-layer privacy. The Q4 2026 window runs to November 30, 2026, and pseudonymous applicants are welcome.
• The Human Rights Foundation's Bitcoin Development Fund funds privacy, security and decentralization work that helps people living under authoritarian regimes. It funds Bitcoin only. Recent rounds gave 500 million to 1.5 billion sats split across 16 to 26 projects.
• Maelstrom pays individual developers $50,000 to $150,000 a year in BTC or stablecoins; current grantees work on Payjoin and Silent Payments.
• Spiral funds Bitcoin privacy tools such as Payjoin and CoinSwap, by emailed proposal.

Our guide to Bitcoin developer grants covers these funders in more depth.

Ethereum privacy funding is mostly between rounds

Ethereum's privacy funders were largely paused in October 2026:

One Ethereum option is open now and one opens soon. The Ethereum Audit Subsidy Program gives priority to projects aligned with censorship resistance, open source, privacy and security when it pays up to 30% of an audit, and Shutter's Round 2 launches on November 16, 2026.

Privacy grant programs that stopped

Several privacy programs you will find in older lists had no way to apply in October 2026:

The Secret Network case is documented on its grants page, which still points to a GitHub repo where 2026 applications got no reply from the team.

What privacy funders look for

Privacy funders share more requirements with each other than with the rest of crypto:

1. Open source from the first commit. Monero CCS requires permissive licensing at every stage, Nym requires fully open-source projects, and OpenSats requires work to be developed in public.
2. A public process. Zcash, Monero CCS and Shutter all discuss applications on public forums, so write your proposal for public reading and leave out personal details you do not want attached to it.
3. Identity at payout, even if not in public. OpenSats welcomes pseudonymous applicants; MAGIC accepts pseudonyms but identifies you before payout; Zcash requires KYC for grants above $50,000 while letting you stay pseudonymous in public.
4. Sanctions screening. OpenSats cannot fund grants tied to OFAC-sanctioned countries or programs, and MAGIC runs sanctions checks. Rules on privacy software also differ between countries, so get legal advice if you are unsure where your work stands.
5. Mission fit. HRF wants work that serves people under repressive regimes, and the Kusama art initiative wants work on privacy, digital sovereignty and surveillance.

Our guides to KYC for crypto grants and getting a crypto grant without a company cover the identity side, and how to apply for Web3 grants covers the rest.

FAQ

Can I get a privacy grant without revealing my identity?

You can apply pseudonymously to several privacy grant programs, but you usually have to identify yourself to the funder before payment. OpenSats welcomes pseudonymous applicants, the MAGIC Monero Fund accepts pseudonyms but requires ID, tax and sanctions checks before payout, and Zcash Community Grants lets you stay pseudonymous in public while requiring KYC for grants above $50,000.

How long does a Monero CCS proposal take to get funded?

A Monero CCS proposal has no fixed timeline. After you publish it, the community discusses it, and only when the Core Team sees rough consensus does it open for XMR donations. Funding then depends on donors, and a proposal can sit in the "Funding Required" stage for months. Money is held in escrow and released milestone by milestone, not all at once.

Which privacy grants pay in stablecoins or USD?

As of October 2026, the Horizen Builder Ecosystem Fund pays in USDC, the Shutter DAO Impact Pilot in USDC and SHU, Zcash Community Grants in ZEC or USD, and Maelstrom in BTC or stablecoins. The MAGIC Monero Fund prefers XMR but will pay in BTC, USD or another liquid currency if you ask, while Monero CCS pays only in XMR.

Is Secret Network still giving grants?

No. The Secret Labs grants program has stopped: its last cohort call was for Q2 2025, and SCRT Labs ended official support for Secret Network on September 1, 2026. A community-run Secret Network Foundation took over in August 2026 and says an Ecosystem Fund and a returning Builder Program will back new projects, but it had published no application process, amounts or dates as of October 1, 2026.