RFP Suggestion: ZKsync Africa & Emerging Markets Onboarding and AI Discovery Pilot

General
1

Decentralised News proposes an eight-week community activation pilot designed to improve how ZKsync is discovered, understood and evaluated by fintech founders, developers, crypto-native users and digital-finance communities across Africa and other emerging markets.

The project would combine an open ZKsync Use-Case Navigator, independent educational resources, video explainers, regional distribution and an AI/search discoverability experiment. The objective is not simply to generate social impressions. It is to help prospective users and builders understand where ZKsync, the ZK Stack and privacy-enabled infrastructure may fit within payments, tokenization, institutional finance and other practical applications.

Why This May Be Valuable

ZKsync has sophisticated infrastructure and a growing institutional narrative, but concepts such as the ZK Stack, Ethereum settlement, interoperability, privacy-preserving execution and Prividium remain difficult for audiences outside the existing ecosystem to understand.

Emerging-market fintech communities represent a strategically relevant audience because they already confront practical problems involving cross-border payments, access to digital dollars, fragmented financial infrastructure and the need for scalable financial applications. However, these audiences require practical use-case explanations and trustworthy onboarding paths rather than high-level promotional messaging.

Proposed Deliverables

The eight-week pilot would deliver:

  • One freely accessible ZKsync Use-Case Navigator

  • One external discovery and onboarding review

  • Four substantial educational and analytical resources

  • Three long-form educational videos

  • At least ten short-form video and social derivatives

  • One structured ZKsync FAQ and knowledge resource

  • Distribution through relevant Decentralised News publishing, video, social and community channels

  • Baseline and post-publication search and AI-answer-engine monitoring

  • A public final report documenting outputs, reach, engagement, referral traffic and lessons

The Navigator would help users identify which ZKsync concepts and official resources are most relevant to their needs. Possible pathways would include payments, institutional infrastructure, privacy, tokenized assets, application development and ZK Stack deployment.

Measurement

The pilot would report:

  • Unique users reaching the resources

  • Navigator sessions and completed pathways

  • Engaged reading time

  • Video views and retention

  • Qualified clicks to official ZKsync resources

  • Geographic audience distribution

  • Search visibility

  • Observed AI-answer-engine citations

  • Builder or partnership enquiries generated

  • Community feedback

  • Cost per engaged user

  • Cost per qualified referral

Where practical, campaign links would distinguish general traffic from higher-intent visits to developer documentation, ecosystem applications and institutional resources.

Applicant

The applicant would be Proudly Associated (Pty) Ltd, operating Decentralised News, led by Heath Muchena.

Decentralised News operates a crypto-native media, research and education network spanning publishing, video, social and community platforms. Its work combines independent research, user education, decision tools, search discovery, AI-answer-engine monitoring and multi-format distribution.

The team also includes two developers who can build the Navigator and supporting analytics infrastructure, together with administrative and project-management support.

Timeline and Funding

Duration: Eight weeks

Funding request: USD 15,000 equivalent in ZK, calculated at the agreed reference rate when the grant is executed.

Proposed payment structure:

  • 50% at commencement to fund research, development and production

  • 50% following approval of the mid-program deliverables and report

The second payment would not be held until the entire project is complete.

Budget

  • Navigator design and development: $3,500

  • Research and educational production: $3,500

  • Video and multimedia production: $2,500

  • Distribution and regional adaptation: $2,500

  • Analytics, AI/search monitoring and reporting: $1,500

  • Project administration and technical maintenance: $1,500

Request for Feedback

We would appreciate community and Foundation feedback on:

  1. Whether an emerging-markets onboarding and discovery experiment would complement the existing Community Activation workstreams.

  2. Which audience should be prioritized: fintech founders, developers, institutional decision-makers or crypto-native users.

  3. Whether the Navigator should focus principally on the ZK Stack and Prividium or cover the wider ZKsync ecosystem.

  4. Whether this concept should be developed into a formal RFP suggestion for the next Community Activation season.

The proposal can be revised around the community’s preferred audience, use cases and measurable outcomes before any funding request proceeds.

Proposal Review Call - POSTPONED - September 16th 2026
2

This is a timely and well-structured proposal. I would like to add a perspective from the professional education angle.

Skye Wallet Academy is a blockchain education institution in Nigeria training financial services professionals on enterprise blockchain architecture. We are the education arm of Skye Wallet, a pan-African crypto and stablecoin payments platform and Circle Alliance member.

We are in the process of developing a Prividium module for our Certificate in Enterprise Blockchain Architecture programme, which trains compliance officers, operations staff, and enterprise architects at Nigerian and African financial institutions. Our graduates are the exact audience that ZKsync needs inside African banks and fintechs — not just aware of Prividium, but qualified to evaluate, specify, and champion it internally.

We would be interested in exploring whether a complementary professional training proposal could sit alongside this community activation initiative, covering the institutional education layer that content and media alone cannot reach.

Would the community and Foundation be open to a combined approach?

3

The use-case navigator sounds useful, especially if it helps people quickly understand which ZKsync resources are relevant to them. I’d prioritize clear beginner paths, practical examples, and links to official resources so newcomers can move from learning to trying something without feeling overwhelmed.

4

Thank you for adding this perspective. The institutional education layer you describe is clearly distinct from, and potentially complementary to, the public discovery and onboarding layer proposed here.

For the initial pilot, we believe it would be prudent to keep the scope focused and the delivery responsibilities clearly defined. Our proposal is designed around an independently delivered public-use navigator, beginner pathways, practical resources, and measurable distribution. A professional certification module aimed at compliance officers, operations teams, and enterprise architects would involve a different audience, curriculum, validation process, and set of outcomes.

That said, there could be useful points of alignment without requiring the initiatives to be combined operationally. These might include exchanging insights about institutional learning needs, linking users to appropriate professional resources, or ensuring that the public navigator provides a sensible pathway from introductory education toward more advanced institutional training.

We would welcome the Foundation and community’s view on whether these are best considered as separate but complementary proposals. If both initiatives move forward, any potential coordination could then be explored around clearly defined interfaces and responsibilities without expanding the initial scope prematurely.

5

Thank you, this is exactly the kind of direction we were hoping to validate.

We agree that the Navigator should be organized around user goals rather than expecting newcomers to understand ZKsync’s ecosystem structure in advance. A beginner should be able to identify what they want to accomplish, such as using an application, moving assets, exploring DeFi, deploying a first contract, or contributing to the ecosystem, and then receive a short, practical pathway with plain-language explanations, real examples, key risks, and links to the relevant official resources.

We would also like each pathway to end with a clear next action, so the experience moves users from discovery to informed participation rather than leaving them with another collection of documentation. As part of the proposed discovery phase, we can test these journeys with new users and identify where they become confused or abandon the process.

Are there one or two beginner journeys you believe currently create the most friction or should be prioritized in the first version? That input would help us keep the initial scope focused on the areas of greatest practical value.

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