On January 8, the entire development team at the Electric Coin Company (ECC) resigned following a governance dispute with the Bootstrap nonprofit board, a move that coincided with a double-digit sell-off in Zcash (ZEC).
ECC CEO Josh Swihart described the departures as a “constructive discharge,” saying unilateral changes to employment terms and what he called “malicious governance actions” by a majority of the Bootstrap board made continued work untenable.
The names Swihart singled out in the dispute included Zaki Manian, Christina Garman, Alan Fairless and Michelle Lai.
Former ECC leadership told reporters the Zcash protocol and network itself remain operational and unaffected by the organizational split. The departing developers said they are forming a new company to continue development focused on privacy-preserving features and to preserve the project’s original mission.
Market reaction, roadmap risk and technical continuity
The resignations immediately injected uncertainty into Zcash’s market profile and liquidity. Price moves reported between 7% and 13% reflected short-term risk-off as traders priced in potential disruption to sustained development and community coordination.
Swihart framed the split as a defensive step: “our employment terms were unilaterally changed making it impossible for us to perform our duties effectively and with integrity,” he said, explaining the team’s decision to depart and reconstitute under a new legal entity. The statement emphasized continuity of personnel and stated intent to keep working on privacy-focused development.
Technically, the project’s cryptographic protocol runs on a decentralized blockchain and is not dependent on a single company. Still, institutional investors and custodians typically weigh governance and development continuity when assessing custody, listing and compliance risk for privacy-focused tokens.
Investors are now turning their attention to whether the newly formed team can deliver on the technical work signaled in the Q4 2025 roadmap and to any governance steps the Bootstrap board will take to restore confidence. Market participants will test that thesis in price action and through signals about development continuity, community coordination and any formal responses from Bootstrap.
