Zcash news

Zcash price plunged >20% after a governance team exit, falling near $380 before rebounding 17% to above $440. Technical analysis shows a rising wedge and a bearish EMA crossover, raising the risk of a 30% downside to about $360 if the wedge breaks. During the dip whales accumulated roughly $3.2 million (7,286 ZEC), moving coins into long-term storage and supporting the rebound. Development activity has weakened, falling from 21.85 to 19.67, which limits upside momentum. Zcash sits at a decision point: a move above $456 would improve prospects, while a break below the wedge’s lower trendline could trigger deeper declines.

Developer activity on the privacy coin Zcash fell to its lowest level since November 2021, coinciding with a governance dispute between the Electric Coin Company and the Bootstrap nonprofit and a 14 % price drop to roughly $433 over the past week. The ECC said it will launch a new wallet, cashZ, in a few weeks, while the Zcash Foundation assured that the open‑source protocol remains resilient. Despite the turmoil, whales bought $1.17 million in spot ZEC and $2.14 million in new wallets last week.

Former Electric Coin Company staff formed a startup, cashZ, to keep developing the Zashi wallet after a dispute with Bootstrap, the nonprofit overseeing ECC. CEO Josh Swihart said the new firm will ship a wallet from the Zashi codebase and aim to scale Zcash to billions, noting startups grow faster than nonprofits. The split arose from a clash over Zashi control; ECC said the team was constructively discharged, while Bootstrap cited nonprofit limits. Swihart said the Zcash protocol is unchanged and engineers will keep working under the new structure, though it may speed releases or fragment the privacy‑coin market.

Zcash developers unveiled a new wallet, cashZ, built on the Zashi codebase, announced less than a day after exiting Electric Coin Co due to governance tensions. Former ECC CEO Josh Swihart said the team remains 100% focused on Zcash development and will launch cashZ in a few weeks. Swihart cited a return to cypherpunk roots, the need for an agile organization free from nonprofit constraints, and Zcash’s growth beyond a small project as reasons for the split. The move followed a 21% drop in ZEC’s price, though the token rebounded to $430 after the announcement.

Zcash price fell over 20% after news that Electric Coin Company's (ECC) team had left the nonprofit, but rebounded above $430 as CEO Josh Swihart clarified the departure was a structural change, not a developer exit. The clarification confirmed that the protocol, consensus rules and infrastructure remain unchanged, and that governance disputes led to a new startup structure; market reaction had overplayed the risk, and the project’s continuity is intact.

The former Electric Coin Company staff, led by ex‑CEO Josh Swihart, resigned en masse after a dispute with the nonprofit board Bootstrap. They are launching a new Zcash wallet, codenamed cashZ, built on the same codebase as Zashi and aimed to compete with the flagship wallet. Swihart said the nonprofit model creates bureaucratic inertia and misaligned incentives, arguing that monetizing parts of the Zcash protocol, including Zashi, was blocked by Bootstrap’s reluctance to privatize the wallet. The split rattled the market; Zcash’s token price fell sharply, while Monero reclaimed the top spot among privacy coins as interest in privacy technology remains high.

Zcash’s developer team at Electric Coin Company resigned after a board clash, sending ZEC down more than 15% and briefly below $400. The move followed a December re‑organisation and leadership exits. Departing staff plan to form a new company and wallet to continue building “unstoppable private money.” Spot XRP ETFs saw their first daily net outflow of $47 million, ending a 36‑day inflow streak, while BTC and ETH ETFs also experienced heavy redemptions – Bitcoin lost $486 million as its price slid to about $90,000 and Ethereum fell 3.8% to $3,125. Analysts say the outflows reflect post‑rally rebalancing and weaker sentiment. Meanwhile, Kalshi CEO supports a bill banning insider trading on prediction markets, World Liberty Financial seeks a U.S. trust‑bank charter for its USD1 stablecoin, and Chainalysis reported $154 billion in illicit crypto activity in 2025, largely via stablecoins.

Zcash slid roughly 20% on Jan 8 after the whole Electric Coin Company (ECC) team quit, alleging the Bootstrap board had misaligned the project’s mission and changed employment terms. The exit sparked a sharp sell‑off that was largely independent of the broader crypto market. The rout was amplified by a overheated derivatives market: Zcash futures volume reached $4.4 bn against $1.1 bn spot, with 900 M of open interest and 23 M in liquidations. The resulting liquidity squeeze and recent unshielding of 200k ZEC fed further downward pressure.

The Electric Coin Company team left Zcash after a dispute with Bootstrap, the nonprofit that oversees the network, and formed a new company. The move caused the token to drop 19%, but developers say the protocol remains unchanged. Bootstrap will keep overseeing Zcash and could fund the new group via grants, while the new firm will continue building features such as shielded transactions. Monero’s price rose 6.5% as Zcash’s turbulence lifted its rival.

Monero has climbed back to the top of privacy‑coin market‑cap rankings, trading near $460 after a multi‑week advance that outperformed its peers. The rally follows a 2025 slump when traders favored Zcash and a September block‑reorg that stoked concerns about reorg risk and mining concentration. Zcash, once the sector’s preferred privacy token, fell 15% after the entire Electric Coin Company team resigned amid a governance dispute, casting doubt on its near‑term development roadmap. The shake‑up halted the token’s recent gains and eroded confidence in its privacy narrative.