Ex-ECC Team Launches New Zcash Startup ‘cashZ’ Amid Governance Clash
The Zcash protocol remains unaffected despite recent tensions between the former Electric Coin Company (ECC) team and Bootstrap, the nonprofit overseeing Zcash development.
Josh Swihart, ex-lead of ECC, announced the formation of a new Zcash-focused startup and plans for a wallet built on the Zashi codebase, currently called “cashZ.” On X, Swihart described the initiative as a way to “scale Zcash to billions of users,” adding, “startups can scale, but nonprofits can’t,” framing the move as a faster path to delivering consumer products outside nonprofit governance constraints.
The announcement follows Thursday’s dispute with Bootstrap over control and restructuring of Zashi. ECC described its team as being “constructively discharged,” while Bootstrap cited legal and fiduciary limits on approvals.
Swihart stressed that the Zcash protocol itself remains fully operational, and the same engineers will continue building on the network under the new corporate structure.
The news drove sharp volatility in ZEC and spilled into the broader privacy coin market. Observers are now watching the new wallet project as a key signal of whether the initiative will accelerate product development or risk further fragmenting the small Zcash ecosystem.
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