Zcash experienced a 30% drop in the short term and is now rebounding. Many people's first reaction might be that the project is in trouble. However, a deeper look reveals that the reasons behind this turmoil are actually quite interesting.

This decline is not due to a hacker attack, nor is it a code-level issue, and definitely not regulatory pressure. The real situation is that Zcash's core development team—ECC—has chosen to collectively leave the existing governance system. It sounds a bit like internal conflict, but fundamentally, it's a structural problem.

ECC's stance is very straightforward: the current non-profit organization's governance approach has seriously deviated from Zcash's original intent. The rules have been changed to the point where normal operation is impossible, leaving them no choice but to leave. Subsequently, they decided to create a new company, CashZ, to continue their work.

The key points to note here are:
The new company will not fork Zcash, issue a new token, or create a new blockchain. They will continue using Zcash's code but will shift focus to wallet development and commercial implementation.

What does this indicate? It’s not the value of the Zcash project itself that is being denied, but rather the governance structure.

So why was ZEC hammered so hard? In fact, the market is pricing in a deeper risk: the most knowledgeable and capable people about the project have left the original system. Who will be responsible for project advancement and decision-making next? This doubt naturally suppresses the token price.

Interestingly, industry insiders are viewing this more calmly. The consensus is that this is not a project collapse but an inevitable structural adjustment. When a project moves from the early stage into product development and commercial growth, traditional non-profit models often become bottlenecks—slow decision-making, weak execution, and difficulty in rapid iteration.

This process is somewhat similar to the transformation OpenAI went through years ago. Ultimately, it’s not a divergence in values, but that the organizational form can no longer keep up with the project's ambitions. Moving from an idealistic phase to practical implementation is a hurdle many projects must cross. They can either restructure or replace personnel.

Zcash will not be the first project to face such a choice, and it certainly won't be the last. Such structural adjustments will become increasingly common in the Web3 space.