Zcash (ZEC) developers have wasted no time since their very public departure from the Electric Coin Company. Less than a day after confirming that they were out the door, the former ECC team went on to announce plans to launch an all-new wallet for the privacy-centric cryptocurrency.
Former ECC CEO Josh Swihart announced the development late Thursday, saying that many of the same developers who worked on Zcash and developed the Zashi wallet were now employed by a new company. Swihart said the new wallet will be constructed using the same Zashi codebase and will remain fully focused on supporting Zcash.
The new wallet, codenamed cashZ, will launch in the coming weeks. Swihart added that it would be seamless for current Zashi users to move over to the new wallet. Of course, no technical details were given, but it was an attempt to reassure Zcash users after the sudden organizational change.
Zcash Team Leaves ECC Independently
The decision to leave Electric Coin Company was the result of internal conflicts focused on nonprofit laws and the organization’s governance structure. Swihart emphasized that despite the exit, the mission of the team remains the same.
“The entire team behind Zashi remains fully committed to Zcash’s development,” he said, emphasizing that no new tokens are being created. “We’re not launching a new thing; we focus on scaling Zcash.”
To do this, Swihart said, the group felt it was necessary to create a new, standalone organization focused solely on developing Zcash.
Zcash Embraces Fast-Growth Strategy
In a lengthy note published today on the project’s website, Swihart cited deeper motivations for the change. He called Zcash a child of the cypherpunk ideals of privacy and personal liberty and said it deserves an organization that fully understands and advocates on behalf of that mission.
He also argued that privacy in crypto should be considered commonplace, on the same footing as the privacy of physical cash. To this day, defending those rights requires a lean team able to move fast and act decisively without getting bogged down by the labyrinth of nonprofit bureaucracy.
Swihart indicated a basic difference in emphases: nonprofits hang on to tight rules, while startups are designed to run fast and create new paths. He noted that the meeting of nonprofit foundations and tech startups has spurred periodic conflicts across the crypto space.
Another catalyst for change is the rising star that is ZEC. Swihart cites two years of building momentum, which have transformed the experiment into a breathing, mutating organism. If Zcash is to take a seat at the same table as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana, it needs to adopt a system designed to scale.
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Zcash Price Sees Small Bounce
The corporate upheaval sent the ZEC price into a tailspin, plummeting more than 21% as the dust settled, slipping under the $400 mark on Thursday.
The ZEC did nudge upward in early Friday trading following the wallet reveal, briefly flirting with the $430 mark. Yet the token stays well shy of its record highs. From its 2016 peak of $3,191, ZEC has fallen roughly 86%, and it sits about 38% below its 2025 high near $700, according to CoinGecko data.
Despite the unpredictable tide of price movement, the swift response from the development team and focus on ZEC might spur a sense of rejuvenated trust in the long-time supporters of the privacy coin.
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