Washington now has a Zcash lobby. Pretty Good Policy for Zcash, or PGPZ, registered under the Lobbying Disclosure Act with an effective date of Oct. 1, putting a privacy coin in the same room as Coinbase and far larger corporate players.
The filing names executive director Divij Pandya as the group’s only registered lobbyist and describes its work as “Zcash ecosystem development, developer protections, and financial privacy.” PGPZ emerged in June from Pretty Good Policy for Crypto, an initiative started by Electric Coin Co. that held recurring Washington roundtables for policy professionals and organized a congressional briefing on privacy-enhancing technologies back in 2023.
Three bills sit at the center of the registered agenda. The biggest is H.R. 3633, the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, which would create a federal market structure for digital commodities and split oversight between the SEC and the CFTC. The other two are tax measures: the Digital Asset Tax Certainty Act, H.R. 10357, and the ADAPT Act, introduced by Sen. Steve Daines on Sept. 30 to establish clearer digital-asset tax rules and address areas where blockchain transactions differ from traditional financial activity.
CLARITY is the harder lift. The Senate failed 49-50 to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed on Sept. 15, with 60 votes required, and a motion to reconsider was entered afterward. The Senate Banking Committee had advanced its version 15-9 in May after months of negotiation, so the September floor defeat landed on a bill that once looked like the consensus vehicle. The House has moved one of PGPZ’s other targets further: the Ways and Means Committee approved the amended Tax Certainty Act 38-5 on Sept. 16 and ordered it reported to the full chamber. That bill covers mining, staking, reporting rules and the tax treatment of small crypto transactions.
The group has not said which provisions it supports or opposes. The registration form lists the bills as current or anticipated lobbying issues without committing PGPZ to a position on every clause, which is standard for a first filing but leaves its actual asks unstated for now.
Where the money comes from
Zcash Community Grants approved a $750,000 funding request on Aug. 31 after reviewing the one-year operating plan. Paul Brigner, who sits on the grants committee and helped establish PGPZ, recused himself from the discussion. The application bars grant money from campaign contributions, partisan election activity, political donations and any effort to promote the market price of ZEC. It says the organization will focus on conditions affecting the Zcash ecosystem rather than the commercial interests of one company.
The largest slice, $400,000, covers operating costs, staffing and professional services. Another $125,000 goes to administrative support through the Financial Privacy Foundation, and $120,000 pays for legal, lobbying, tax, accounting and compliance work. Events and workshops get $25,000, travel and congressional visits another $25,000, and the remainder covers government affairs tools, research, communications and a contingency reserve.
Brigner’s stated goal is to make sure Zcash has “serious, organized, and credible policy engagement in Washington.”
Privacy software is the sticking point
Developer protection is what separates PGPZ from most corporate crypto lobbying. Zcash’s privacy tooling runs through noncustodial applications, and the group’s grant application lists developer liability, anti-money-laundering rules, sanctions and financial surveillance among the areas it plans to monitor. It wants clear rules and safe harbors for developers and maintainers of noncustodial privacy software, and it intends to propose amendments where pending rules would touch privacy-preserving technology.
The debate over developer liability has grown all year, with separate political committees forming to defend blockchain and DeFi developers in key races while lawmakers work through how existing financial statutes apply to people who write code rather than move money. Zcash sits closer to that fault line than most projects because its core feature, shielded transactions, is exactly what AML frameworks tend to target.
PGPZ is not an official arm of the Zcash Foundation. Its website says the organization operates independently and is not affiliated with or endorsed by the foundation, and its IRS tax-exempt application was still in progress with legal counsel as of the group’s Sept. 30 update. The board was seated by that date and the federal registration had been filed.
A year of quiet wins for Zcash
The registration closes out a strong stretch for the coin in Washington. The SEC ended its investigation into the Zcash Foundation in January without enforcement action, closing a review that started in 2023. Grayscale then launched the first US-listed spot Zcash ETF on NYSE Arca in August, bringing a privacy-focused asset into a regulated exchange product for the first time.
PGPZ enters a field where the biggest names already spend heavily. Coinbase reported a $1.07 million lobbying bill in the first quarter alone, much of it around market-structure legislation. Against that, $750,000 buys a small operation, which is why the group’s plan leans on access and education rather than volume.
What happens next
The first three months call for at least 15 introductory meetings with policymakers, educational material for congressional offices and at least one briefing or workshop. Later targets include policy briefs, regulatory submissions and repeat engagement with government offices. An Oct. 14 fly-in and a Cypherpunk Policy Dinner are next on the calendar, with the fly-in bringing ecosystem representatives into meetings with Congress and, potentially, regulators.
The timing overlaps with a technical milestone. Zcash developers have targeted Nov. 5 for the NU7 mainnet upgrade, with testnet activation scheduled for Oct. 6 and a final mainnet decision expected later this month. A privacy coin with a live ETF, a closed enforcement file and a registered lobbyist is in a different position than Zcash held a year ago, when the SEC review was still open and no US product existed. Whether that converts into votes is another matter, and the 49-50 Senate tally from September suggests it will not happen quickly.