The team at Electric Coin Company (ECC), the primary developer of Zcash, has left the company entirely due to internal conflict. This was revealed by former CEO Josh Swihart.
Over the past few weeks, it's become clear that the majority of Bootstrap board members (a 501(c)(3) nonprofit created to support Zcash by governing the Electric Coin Company), specifically Zaki Manian, Christina Garman, Alan Fairless, and Michelle Lai (ZCAM), have moved into…
— Josh Swihart 🛡 (@jswihart) January 7, 2026
According to him, most members of the Bootstrap nonprofit board acted contrary to the mission of the privacy cryptocurrency. This structure was intended to support and develop the Zcash ecosystem.
“In short, the terms of our employment were changed in such a way that it became impossible for us to effectively and diligently fulfill our duties,” Swihart added.
The developers plan to establish a new company, maintaining their commitment to the core goal of creating "unstoppable private money."
The Zcash protocol will not be affected by the team's departure and will continue to operate as usual.
“This decision was made solely to protect our team's work from malicious actions by management that made it impossible to fulfill ECC's original mission,” Swihart explained.
Zcash Token Reaction
Following the news, the price of ZEC dropped by over 10% in the last 24 hours. At the time of writing, the coin is trading around $440, significantly lower than its November peak of $720.
As of January 8, 2026, the Zcash price fell below the $400 mark, dropping to $394. Over the past 24 hours, the asset has decreased by 18.6%.
Co-founder of Helius Labs, Mert Mumtaz, described the situation as a "bullish signal." The expert still anticipates Zcash will rise to $10,000.
extremely bullish
— mert | helius (@mert) January 7, 2026
zcash's most competent (along with tachyon ofc), now unburdened by the crippling inefficiencies of foundation politics
$10,000
the money is actually gonna be encrypted https://t.co/pyQYSk1nOu
“The most competent people in Zcash (along with Tachyon, of course), are now free from the crippling inefficiencies of foundation politics,” Mumtaz commented.
It’s worth noting that experts from a16z crypto consider privacy to be the main trend in the crypto market for 2026. This view is shared by entrepreneur Balaji Srinivasan and Coinbase Ventures.