TL;DR
- Electric Coin Company’s full Zcash development team exited after a governance split with Bootstrap, citing misalignment and constructive discharge conditions.
- Josh Swihart said board changes altered employment terms; the team will form a new company to keep building “unstoppable private money,” while the protocol stays open-source and unaffected.
- Zooko Wilcox defended Bootstrap; ZEC fell to about $443.38, down 10.3%, as supporters see renewal and critics fear fragmentation.
Zcash’s long-time development shop, Electric Coin Company, is preparing to launch a new company after a sudden split tied to governance disputes with Bootstrap, the nonprofit created to support Zcash. Public statements say the entire Electric Coin Company team departed its prior arrangement, not as a gradual transition but as a break in alignment that leadership said made continued work impossible. For a project built around “private money,” the rupture spotlights tension between mission teams and governance boards. Even so, stakeholders stress the protocol itself remains operational and open-source, separating organizational drama from network continuity.
https://twitter.com/jswihart/status/2008987228429799621
Governance Dispute Drives Exit, While Protocol Continues
The dispute centers on Bootstrap, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit created to govern Electric Coin Company. CEO Josh Swihart said a majority of Bootstrap board members had moved into clear misalignment with Zcash’s mission, naming Zaki Manian, Christina Garman, Alan Fairless, and Michelle Lai as central figures in that majority. Swihart said the board imposed changes that altered the team’s employment terms, undermining the ability to work effectively and with integrity. He framed the team’s departure as constructive discharge. In that lens, working conditions changed so materially that resignation became inevitable, shifting the story from code disagreements to governance power dynamics.
Swihart also acknowledged confusion over roles and titles, noting that public listings showing him as executive director of Bootstrap were outdated. Despite the separation, he emphasized the departing team is not abandoning the vision and plans to found a new company to keep building “unstoppable private money.” That language reprises Zcash’s long-standing focus on privacy, censorship resistance, and user sovereignty. Meanwhile, multiple figures stressed the protocol is unaffected: Zcash’s codebase is open-source, and no single company owns or controls the network. In practical terms, the network’s permissionless design buffers users from organizational churn, even as development stewardship reshuffles.
Zcash founder and former Electric Coin Company CEO Zooko Wilcox defended the Bootstrap board and said Zcash remains permissionless, secure, and safe to use, underscoring that leadership perspectives diverge sharply on what happened and why. Markets reacted to uncertainty: ZEC traded around $443.38, down 10.3% in a day, giving back most of December’s gains. Supporters of the departing team argued separation from hostile governance could strengthen mission-driven development, while critics warned about fragmentation and lost continuity. Ultimately, hybrid governance structures are being stress-tested in public, exposing the fragility of nonprofits, companies, and open-source communities trying to share authority.
