Zcash core team splits from ECC, forms new company and readies cashZ wallet

Zcash core developers who left the Electric Coin Company (ECC) have formed a new, Zcash-focused company and announced a wallet reboot codenamed cashZ that will reuse the existing Zashi codebase. The team — with public messaging led by Josh Swihart and contributors such as Sean Bowe, genzcash and Shielded Labs — opened an early-access waitlist and said current Zashi users will be able to migrate with minimal setup. The group emphasized they are not creating a new coin and remain committed to full‑stack Zcash (ZEC) development. They framed the organizational split as driven by three priorities: defending Zcash’s cypherpunk, privacy-first mission; resolving governance and incentive misalignment between nonprofit and for‑profit structures; and scaling Zcash to mainstream adoption. The developers positioned the cashZ wallet launch as a first step toward broader onboarding and said the new structure enables faster, larger-scale development than the previous small‑project setup. At the time of reporting, ZEC had recovered some losses and was trading around $436. Key takeaways for traders: expect continuity of development and an easy migration path for wallet users (reducing short-term technical disruption), potential positive sentiment among privacy-focused users, and organizational uncertainty that could cause volatility around announcements and releases.