Balaji Srinivasan Backs Zcash Developers After Team Exits And Launches New Wallet - ZEC Price Gains

The initiative also drew praise from Dragonfly Managing Partner Hasseb Qureshi, who called the Electric Coin Company team members “true believers.”

• A core Zcash developer team led by former Electric Coin Company CEO Josh Swihart resigned following a governance dispute with the nonprofit overseeing the project.
• Within hours of announcing their departure, the team unveiled CashZ, a new wallet aimed at scaling Zcash adoption.
• Balaji Srinivasan endorsed the developers writing that Zcash “can scale”  and “must scale.”

American entrepreneur and investor Balaji Srinivasan lent support to the Zcash (ZEC) developer team that quit over governance disagreements on Thursday, when they launched a new Zcash wallet, just hours after announcing their exit.

“Zcash can scale. Zcash must scale. Zcash will scale,” Balaji wrote in a post on X. He was responding to a post from Josh Swihart, the former chief executive of the Electric Coin Company (ECC). Swihart announced on Thursday that he and his team were leaving ECC following a dispute with Bootstrap, the nonprofit that oversees Zcash governance.

Despite a volatile Thursday, Zcash’s price rose 7.3% on Friday morning, even as the broader market remained subdued. Trading at around $431, retail sentiment around Zcash on Stocktwits rose to ‘bullish’ from ‘neutral’ territory over the past day. Chatter also jumped to ‘high’ from ‘low’ levels.

New Zcash Wallet Within Hours Of Exit

Shortly after announcing their departure, Swihart revealed the launch of CashZ, a new Zcash wallet aimed at scaling the protocol and accelerating adoption. 

In addition to Balaji, the initiative also drew praise from Dragonfly Managing Partner Hasseb Qureshi, who stated, “Say what you will about them, the Zcash team are true believers and cypherpunks.”

Governance Dispute Triggers Developer Exit

Swihart said the decision to leave ECC followed what he described as a “clear misalignment” between the Bootstrap board and Zcash’s original mission. He named Bootstrap board members Zaki Manian, Christina Garman, Alan Fairless, and Michelle Lai and claimed changes to employment terms made it impossible for the team to operate “effectively and with integrity.”

Swihart said that ECC members plan to form a new company with the same team, reiterating that the Zcash protocol remains unaffected. 

Bootstrap, which was formed in 2020 to oversee ECC, disputed that characterization. In a statement, the nonprofit said it was acting to ensure compliance with U.S. nonprofit law and to protect the broader Zcash community. The board warned that the proposed restructuring by ECC could expose the project to donor lawsuits and politically motivated scrutiny, pointing to OpenAI’s transition to a for-profit structure as an example of potential risk.

One user on Stocktwits predicted that Cypherpunk (CYPH), the company formerly known as Leap Therapeutics, which pivoted to a Zcash-based digital treasury last year, may absorb the recently estranged Zcash developer team.

CYPH’s price fell over 1.7% in pre-market trade with retail sentiment on Stocktwits trending in ‘bearish’ territory over the past day.

Zcash Network Remains Intact, Founder Says

Zcash founder Zooko Wilcox, who stepped down as ECC chief executive in December 2023, also chimed in, stating that the Zcash network remains “open source, permissionless, secure, and private,” and that ongoing development is not dependent on any single organization.

ECC is one of several entities contributing to the Zcash ecosystem. Other groups, including Shielded Labs, the Zcash Foundation, and Project Tachyon, continue to support protocol development.

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