ECC team quits Bootstrap, plans new company; Zcash network steady
The team at Electric Coin Company (ECC), the developer behind privacy-focused cryptocurrency Zcash, has resigned from Bootstrap, the nonprofit supporting the project, and intends to establish a new company, according to ECC CEO Josh Swihart.
“Over the past few weeks, it’s become clear that the majority of Bootstrap board members […] Specifically Zaki Manian, Christina Garman, Alan Fairless, and Michelle Lai (ZCAM), have moved into clear misalignment with the mission of Zcash,” Swihart said on Wednesday.
“Yesterday, the entire ECC team left,” he added. “In short, the terms of our employment were changed in ways that made it impossible for us to perform our duties effectively and with integrity.”
“This decision is simply about protecting our team’s work from malicious governance actions that have made it impossible to honor ECC’s original mission,” Swihart said. “We’re founding a new company, but we’re still the same team with the same mission: building unstoppable private money.”
Zcash network unaffected; operations unchanged
Swihart said the Zcash protocol is not impacted by the team’s departure and will continue operating normally. Zcash’s codebase is public and open source, and no single entity controls the protocol. Anyone can operate a node, maintain a fork, or propose code changes, and the network depends on miners, validators, and users to function.
Former ECC CEO backs Bootstrap board
Former ECC CEO Zooko Wilcox, who transferred leadership to Swihart in 2023, expressed support for the Bootstrap board in a post on X on Wednesday. “I’ve worked closely with Alan Fairless, Zaki Manian, and Christina Garman for more than 10 years, through many intense and difficult situations, and with Michelle Lai for about 5 years. Based on my experiences, I believe them all to be people of exceptionally high integrity,” Wilcox said.
Wilcox also emphasized that the Zcash protocol remains operational: “The Zcash network is open source, permissionless, secure, and private, and nothing that happens in this conflict can change that. You can safely continue to use Zcash,” he added.
Zcash price declines on the day
Zcash is down nearly 7% over the past 24 hours, trading around $461, according to crypto data aggregator CoinGecko. During the same period, it moved between $452 and $497.
The token participated in a privacy coin rally in November last year, rising to around $723 on Nov. 8, partly supported by endorsements from notable industry commentators, including Arthur Hayes.
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