From a 15x surge to a 40% crash, Zcash development team faces difficulties after resignation

Zcash（ZEC） has experienced a rare rollercoaster in the crypto market. Between September and November 2025, its market cap surged approximately 15 times, but in the following two months, the price retraced by 40%. More concerning is that on-chain development activity has dropped to its lowest level since November 2021. Behind all this is the collective resignation of the core development team.

The Contrast Between Surge and Crash

According to the latest data, ZEC’s current price is $428.52, with a 24-hour decline of 9.99% and a 7-day drop of 19.16%. These figures seem normal, but in the context of recent events, they are startling.

During the market rally from September to November last year, ZEC’s market cap increased by about 15 times, attracting significant investor interest and market attention. However, such extreme gains are often accompanied by extreme risks. Without fundamental support, these kinds of surges are usually unsustainable.

Since November (about two months ago), ZEC has retraced 40%. This not only means late entrants faced substantial losses but also that such a retracement often triggers a reassessment of the project’s prospects.

Core Team Resignation Sparks Confidence Crisis

The real turning point occurred on January 8. The entire core team of Electric Coin Company (ECC), the main developer of Zcash, resigned collectively, instantly igniting the market.

According to reports, ECC CEO Josh Swihart stated that the team’s departure was due to serious disagreements with the governance body Bootstrap’s board. Swihart pointed out that the decisions made by the majority of Bootstrap’s board members (including Zaki Manian, Christina Garman, Alan Fairless, and Michelle Lai) had “significantly deviated” from Zcash’s core mission.

Even more seriously, ECC team members claimed they experienced a form of “constructive dismissal”—meaning, without outright firing, their employment terms and working conditions were unilaterally altered, making it impossible for the team to perform their duties effectively. This indicates a major governance crisis surrounding the project’s direction, rather than a simple personnel change.

The good news is that Josh Swihart emphasized that the Zcash protocol itself remains unaffected, and the departing team is establishing a new company to continue developing privacy technology. However, this split itself is a signal: there are fundamental disagreements within the project about its direction.

The Deeper Implication of Declining Development Activity

Even more noteworthy is a data point that is often overlooked: development activity has fallen to its lowest level since November 2021.

Development activity typically reflects a project’s true vitality. When this indicator declines, it means code commits are decreasing, feature updates are slowing, and technological iterations are stagnating. For a blockchain project that requires continuous innovation and maintenance, this is a dangerous sign.

The team’s resignation and the decline in development activity form a causal chain: governance crisis led to core developers leaving, which further weakened the project’s development capacity. This vicious cycle can gradually erode investor confidence.

Data comparison

Can the New Team Turn the Situation Around?

The resigned team plans to establish a new company with the original team and mission, indicating their continued commitment to Zcash’s privacy coin vision. But this also introduces new uncertainties:

The new company needs to rebuild infrastructure, secure funding, and regain community trust. This process takes time, and markets often lack patience. Meanwhile, governance of the Zcash protocol still resides with Bootstrap, and how the relationship between the new team and the existing governance structure develops will directly impact the project’s future.

My personal view is that although this split preserves the project’s technology and mission, the blow to market confidence is short-term and hard to repair. Privacy coins are already under regulatory pressure, and now facing an internal governance crisis, which will further weaken investor participation.

Summary

Zcash’s predicament results from multiple overlapping factors: the inevitable retracement after a surge, strategic disagreements at the governance level, the collective resignation of the core team, and a severe decline in development activity. This is not just a price issue but a systemic crisis of the project ecosystem.

Whether the new team can revive the project depends on their ability to regain market and community trust without the original resources and governance rights. The success or failure of this process will be one of the most noteworthy cases in the privacy coin space this year.