A Zcash-focused advocacy group has formally registered to lobby in Washington, stepping up the privacy-oriented cryptocurrency ecosystem's efforts to shape United States policy on digital assets.

Pretty Good Policy for Zcash (PGPZ) filed a lobbying registration effective Oct. 1, naming executive director Divij Pandya as its sole lobbyist, according to the federal lobbying disclosure. Lobbying registrations are public disclosures that identify an organization's lobbyists and the issues it intends to engage on with lawmakers and federal agencies. The filing lists the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, known as the CLARITY Act, and two digital asset tax proposals among its current and anticipated lobbying issues. The CLARITY Act is proposed legislation that would establish a regulatory framework for digital asset markets in the United States.

PGPZ launched in June as an outgrowth of Pretty Good Policy for Crypto, an initiative started in 2022 by Electric Coin Co., the development company behind Zcash. The predecessor program hosted policy roundtables in Washington and organized a congressional briefing on encryption technologies in 2023.

Paul Brigner, PGPZ founder and chief policy and regulatory officer at ZODL, said the goal is to "make sure Zcash has serious, organized, and credible policy engagement in Washington."

"Policymakers are making decisions that will affect whether privacy-preserving digital cash can exist, be used lawfully, and serve the public interest," Brigner said in a post on X. "PGPZ is about ensuring Zcash is understood, represented, and defended in those conversations."

The registration follows an August decision by the Zcash Community Grants program to approve a $750,000 grant funding PGPZ's first year of operations, as outlined in a grant application on the Zcash community forum.

Zcash, launched in 2016, uses zero-knowledge proofs to enable "shielded" transactions in which the sender, recipient, and amount are kept private, making it one of the most prominent privacy-focused digital currencies. Its expanded policy presence comes as US lawmakers continue to debate market structure and tax rules for digital assets — the same areas named in PGPZ's filing. A registered lobbying operation gives the privacy-focused project a formal channel to present its position as those legislative debates unfold, and movement on the CLARITY Act and the two tax proposals in Congress will be the items to watch as PGPZ's Washington operation takes effect.

Source: Cointelegraph