I've been building around cryptocurrency for quite some time, and lately I've been thinking more about privacy and, more importantly, how we actually use private money as normal people. I wanted to build something simple. Not another wallet or exchange, and not another platform where you first need an account, email, password and someone else holding your money.
I was thinking about something much more basic:
What if you could simply have a page where people can pay you in Zcash?
That's where ZecPay started. The idea is right there on the homepage: private Zcash payments made simple. You find ghost mode, there no accounts and is non-custodial. The use simple choose a handle display name and short bio, publish a page and get a link that can share. But I already know the next question:
"Zcash is already private. So why do we need ZecPay?"
That's a fair question. I'm not trying to make Zcash more private. Zcash already does that. I'm looking more at the usability side. You can always give someone a Zcash address and tell them to send you ZEC. But if you're a creator, freelancer, developer, merchant or simply someone who wants to receive support, you may want something easier to share than a long blockchain address.
You want to be able to say: "Here, pay me here."
That's what ZecPay does.
Someone opens your page, sees who you are and can send a preset or custom amount. And if the payment is for something specific, you can create an invoice such as "Pay my coffee," "Buy groceries" or "Pagamento de mensalidade," with its own amount and payment status.
So ZecPay isn't replacing Zcash.
Zcash handles the private payment. Your wallet keeps your money. ZecPay gives you a simple place to ask for it.
And I wanted to keep that last part very important: ZecPay is non-custodial. You provide your own Zcash receiving addresses. ZecPay doesn't need your private keys or to hold your ZEC. There are also no traditional accounts. When you create your page, you receive a manage secret. Save it somewhere safe because it is your way back into editing your page. No account means there is no password reset either.
That's a trade-off I think makes sense for this kind of tool. Also there is a small "Thank You" box on the main page. If ZecPay helps you, if you think the idea has potential, or if you simply want to leave a tip, private feedback or support the work behind it, that box opens my Zcash donation address.
I'm not expecting everyone to tip/donate. That's not the point. I build these things because I genuinely like taking an idea and turning it into something people can actually use. But independent building takes time and resources, so when someone sends a tip, it tells me that what I'm building has value and gives me another reason to keep going. And if you don't want or can't send anything, that's completely fine.
Use it. Test it. Break it. Give me feedback. Tell me what is missing. That's support too.
I've included the screenshots here so you can see the whole flow for yourself, from creating the page to receiving payments and managing invoices.
ZecPay is still new and there is more I want to improve. But the basic idea is already here. I saw a simple gap and thought:
Why not make this easier?
So I built it. Now I want to see what people do with it.