A rather tense situation inside Zcash. The ECC development team, which is the main driving force behind the project, has decided to step back from the current organizational structure. Josh Swihart, CEO of the Electric Coin Company, revealed that essentially the entire development team has left. This was not a decision taken lightly, but a reaction to what they describe as a gradual drift away from the project's original mission.

The critical issue is with Bootstrap, the non-profit organization overseeing ECC and Zcash governance. According to Swihart, the Bootstrap board of directors—featuring figures like Zaki Manian, Christina Garman, Alan Fairless, and Michelle Lai—has taken directions that deeply contradict Zcash's initial intent. What makes this even more interesting is the mechanism used: not outright layoffs, but what ZCAM calls 'constructive resignation,' meaning unilateral modifications to contracts that have made it unsustainable to continue working with integrity.

However, the development team is not abandoning the project. They are establishing a new entity with the same personnel and the same goal: creating 'unstoppable private money.' Swihart emphasized that the Zcash protocol itself remains intact—this is not a technical fork, but rather a move to protect the work done over the years from decisions they see as harmful from a governance perspective. It’s a conflict of vision about where the project should go, not a technical issue. How this new parallel structure will develop remains to be seen.