This morning I opened the market and saw ZEC's trend, and I was a bit stunned. Just a second ago, it was a hot coin in the privacy sector, and the next second, it dropped 20% under the excuse of "disagreement with the team philosophy." The melodramatic level and the harvesting intensity of this routine are more exaggerated than TV dramas.

Let's talk about the background first. Privacy technology has been extremely popular in the crypto market over the past two years. A prominent compliant platform's outlook report in December last year clearly pointed out that privacy technology is one of the three core directions by 2026, with concepts like ZK and FHE being hyped up by various institutions. As an established player in privacy coins, ZEC naturally rides the wave—rising from around $70 in October last year to $750, a solid 10x increase. Many friends around me are heavily holding spot positions or leveraged longs, only to be caught off guard today.

What was the trigger? The ZEC development team suddenly issued a statement saying they are "not aligned" with the higher governance body, feeling that the other side has deviated from the project's original "privacy and freedom" mission, and decided to establish a new team. The team's statement was so heartfelt, as if they were the wronged righteous heroes. But anyone who has been in the circle for a while can see clearly—this is not a clash of philosophies at all, but a premeditated "harvesting show."

Disputes between crypto project teams and governance layers are not new, but the problem is—ZEC chose to make a high-profile announcement at a high price, which is almost certainly something they had in mind. Similar routines have appeared many times in history; each time, the team announces a split or restructuring when the coin price is high, creating market panic in the short term, forcing retail investors to cut losses and buy the dip. When the truth is finally revealed, it’s often too late. This kind of play has become a "classic script" for some projects.