Zcash Development Team ECC Simultaneously Resigns, Alleges Deviation from Project Mission by Governance Body

BlockBeats News, January 8th, Josh Swihart, CEO of Electric Coin Company (ECC), the core developer of Zcash (ZEC), revealed in a post that the ECC team has recently departed from its original organizational structure as a whole and plans to establish a new company. The reason is that its superior governance body Bootstrap (a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization responsible for governing ECC and supporting Zcash) has experienced a "clear and sustained deviation" from Zcash's core mission in terms of governance direction.

Josh stated that over the past few weeks, the majority of the Bootstrap board members, including Zaki Manian, Christina Garman, Alan Fairless, and Michelle Lai from ZCAM, have taken actions that significantly misalign with Zcash's original intent.

According to his disclosure, all ECC members resigned yesterday due to what the ZCAM side implemented as a so-called "constructive discharge": unilaterally changing employment terms and conditions without directly firing employees, making it impossible for the team to continue fulfilling their duties while maintaining professional ethics and technical integrity.
Josh emphasized that the ECC team will establish a new company with the same members and mission to continue working on creating "unstoppable private money."

It is worth noting that the Zcash protocol itself is not affected. This action is not a technical split or a conflict at the protocol level but is done to safeguard ECC's years of work and prevent it from being eroded by "malicious governance behavior."