Electric Coin Company Team Exits Amid Governance Dispute With Zcash Nonprofit

The Electric Coin Company (ECC), one of the primary development firms behind the privacy-focused cryptocurrency network Zcash (ZEC), has confirmed that its entire team has resigned following a major governance dispute with Bootstrap, a nonprofit organization established to support the Zcash ecosystem. The announcement has sent shockwaves through the crypto community and contributed to a sharp decline in ZEC’s market price.

ECC CEO Josh Swihart shared details of the situation in a series of posts on X, stating that a majority of Bootstrap’s board members had become “clearly misaligned” with Zcash’s long-standing mission of enabling private, censorship-resistant digital money. Swihart specifically named Zaki Manian, Christina Garman, Alan Fairless, and Michelle Lai of ZCAM as part of the board faction he believes drove the conflict.

According to Swihart, ECC employees were “constructively discharged,” meaning their working conditions were altered so significantly that continuing their roles became untenable. He argued that changes imposed under the current governance structure made it impossible for the team to perform their duties effectively or ethically, even though they were not formally terminated.

Despite the mass departure, Swihart emphasized that the Zcash protocol itself remains operational and unaffected. He described the team’s exit as a response to what he characterized as “malicious governance actions” rather than a technical or financial failure of the network. The former ECC team is now in the process of forming a new company and reiterated its commitment to Zcash’s core objective of “building unstoppable private money.”

Bootstrap, a 501(c)(3) public-benefit nonprofit that provides governance oversight for ECC, released its own statement framing the dispute as a legal and fiduciary issue. The board explained that it had been exploring outside investment opportunities and alternative structures related to Zashi, a Zcash wallet project, but stressed that any deal must comply with nonprofit law and protect mission-owned assets. Bootstrap warned that improperly structured transactions could expose the organization to lawsuits, regulatory scrutiny, or forced reversals of asset transfers.

Following the news, ZEC price dropped sharply, falling approximately 16% between midnight and 11:00 AM UTC, reflecting investor uncertainty around the future governance of the Zcash ecosystem.