On October 26, 2026, a fight broke out inside the Zcash community over a $550,000 community-funded program that promotes the privacy cryptocurrency to the adult industry. Crypto.news and The Cryptonomist both reported it. It started when program lead Mylo Bennett posted photos of the ZECsy team at Exxxotica in New Jersey. They were demonstrating Zcash payments at a booth branded "Mama's Zcash Kitchen." A trader known as TraderSZ replied that he had increased his short position in ZEC, in a post crypto.news quoted that attacked the program in openly anti-trans terms. Another account cheered a user who had sold their Zcash holdings.

Why It Matters

Payments are still the adult industry's biggest operational constraint. Card networks keep raising compliance pressure, most recently with Mastercard's [scam-merchant monitoring program](/stories/mastercard-smmp-adult-merchants), which flags adult and dating platforms for "closer attention." Crypto keeps presenting itself as the way out, and this is a funded, measurable test of that claim. So far the results are small: 20 providers listing ZEC after one month is a pilot, not a migration. The backlash also shows the problem every crypto project courting sex workers runs into. A token's holder base can turn on the industry the token is trying to serve, and price-focused investors can punish that outreach. Privacy coins also face their own regulatory and exchange-delisting pressure, and that risk would carry over to any merchant that relies on them. For adult creators and retailers, ZEC is still a niche hedge, not a replacement processor.

The grant itself is two months old. Bennett asked Zcash Community Grants for $588,000 on August 3. After talks with the committee, the proposal was revised on August 26 to $550,000, and the schedule shifted toward adult-industry outreach: five adult-industry events, four crypto conferences and eight workshops over September 2026 to August 2027. ZCG approved it on August 31, but only for the first nine monthly milestones. Grant records show about $461,500 approved and a first payment of $45,833 on September 1. The money covers staff pay, travel, sponsorships, educational materials and payment demos. Bennett has to file monthly reports on spending, workshop attendance, wallet installs and events.

What it's for. According to the application, adult-industry workers struggle to keep bank accounts, get paid, and keep personal information private in customer transactions. The workshops teach self-custody wallets and shielded Zcash transactions. The team also demos CipherPay, a point-of-sale system for merchants accepting ZEC. ZECsy's September progress report counted 20 adult service providers publicly listing ZEC as a payment option and two small businesses that had started accepting it. The team says it won't track participants' transactions after onboarding, because that would contradict the privacy it teaches. Forum responses were mostly supportive. One contributor called the budget reasonable compared with typical crypto conference sponsorship spending.

Sources

Update — 2026-10-28

Initial entry — story first created.