The entire Electric Coin Company staff has walked out, alleging ‘malicious governance’ by the project’s non-profit owner.
The developer team behind Zcash (ZEC) effectively dissolved its relationship with its parent organization Wednesday, as Electric Coin Company (ECC) CEO Josh Swihart announced the collective resignation of the entire staff. The move signals a total fracture in the governance of the $8.2 billion privacy protocol, sending the token tumbling 7% to $458.
In a public statement, Swihart claimed the resignations were a response to “constructively discharged” employment terms imposed by the board of Bootstrap, the 501(c)(3) non-profit that acquired ECC in 2020. Swihart accused specific board members, including Zaki Manian and Christina Garman, of deviating from the project’s core mission.
"We’re founding a new company, but we’re still the same team with the same mission: building unstoppable private money. Importantly, the Zcash protocol is unaffected.", Josh Swihart, former ECC CEO
The Governance fracture
This split effectively decapitates the official corporate structure of Zcash while keeping the engineering talent intact under a new, yet-to-be-named banner. The conflict centers on the Bootstrap Project, which was designed to decentralize control but has now become the flashpoint for what Swihart describes as “malicious governance actions.”
The schism has drawn battle lines between the current operators and the protocol’s founder. Zooko Wilcox, who stepped down as CEO in December 2023, publicly sided with the Bootstrap board, vouching for the integrity of the directors Swihart attacked. This places the protocol’s creator in direct opposition to its primary maintainers.
Market Impact
ZEC reacted negatively to the uncertainty, dropping from $492 to a low of $458 (-7%) as volume spiked to $798 million. While the code remains open-source and permissionless, the confusion regarding future roadmap funding and the legitimacy of the “official” ECC brand likely rattled institutional holders.
