- The entire Electric Coin Company team behind Zcash development has left the organization following governance changes.
- A new company will be formed to continue the same privacy-focused mission.
- The Zcash protocol remains unchanged despite the leadership and governance turmoil.
Electric Coin Company, the long-standing development organization behind Zcash, is preparing to found a new company after a sudden and highly public split driven by governance disputes.
Public statements and media reports indicate that the entire Electric Coin Company team has moved away from its previous organizational arrangement with Bootstrap, the nonprofit association established to support Zcash.
Notably, the departure was not framed as a routine resignation or a gradual transition.
Instead, company leadership described the situation as a breakdown in alignment that made it impossible to continue their work under the existing structure.
This decision marks a significant turning point for one of the cryptocurrency industry’s most prominent privacy-focused projects.
Zcash has long been positioned as “private money,” and this organizational fracture highlights growing tensions between mission-driven development teams and nonprofit governance structures.
Governance conflict at the heart of the split
At the center of the dispute is Bootstrap, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit created to support Zcash by governing Electric Coin Company.
Josh Swihart, CEO of Electric Coin Company, publicly stated that a majority of Bootstrap’s board members had clearly become misaligned with Zcash’s mission.
He specifically named Zaki Manian, Christina Garman, Alan Fairless, and Michelle Lai as central figures in that majority.
Swihart said that in recent weeks, board-imposed changes altered the team’s terms of employment.
According to his account, those changes made it impossible for the team to perform their duties effectively and with integrity.
As a result, the entire team left after what Swihart described as constructive dismissal.
Constructive dismissal refers to situations where working conditions are changed so substantially that employees are effectively forced to resign.
The framing suggests the split arose from governance actions rather than disagreements over technology or code.
The dispute also exposed confusion about roles and titles, with Swihart acknowledging that public listings showing him as Bootstrap’s executive director were out of date.
A new company, but the same mission
Despite the split, Swihart emphasized that the departing team is not abandoning its core vision.
He confirmed that the former Electric Coin Company team plans to establish a new company.
The aim of that new entity, he said, remains building “unstoppable private money.”
This language echoes Zcash’s longstanding focus on privacy, censorship resistance, and user sovereignty.
It is important to note that Swihart and others stressed the Zcash protocol itself is not affected by the organizational changes.
Zcash’s codebase is open source, and no company owns or controls the network.
That distinction is crucial for users and developers concerned about continuity and security.
Former Electric Coin Company CEO and Zcash founder Zooko Wilcox defended Bootstrap’s board and stated that Zcash remains permissionless, secure, and safe to use.
Her response highlighted that leadership perspectives differ widely on the causes and consequences of this split.
Market reaction — Zcash price decline
ZEC, Zcash’s native token, experienced a notable price drop following the announcement.
At the time of reporting, Zcash was trading around $443.38, down about 10.3% on the day, erasing most of its December gains.
The price decline reflects uncertainty about governance, leadership stability, and the future direction of development.
Supporters of the departing team argue that separating from what they view as a hostile governance structure could ultimately strengthen development.
They see creating a new company as a way to protect mission-driven work from the dynamics of association boards.
Critics, however, worry about fragmentation and loss of institutional continuity.
The episode highlights broader challenges faced by decentralized projects that rely on hybrid structures combining associations, companies, and open-source communities.