**ZEC (Zcash) is still overall "alive," but its short-term health is indeed not very good, mainly due to the recent event of the core developers collectively resigning (Electric Coin Company team leaving on January 7-8 due to governance disputes), causing a sharp drop in price.**

**Current situation quick update (around January 10, 2026):**
- **Price**: Fluctuating around **$380–$385**, with a 24-hour decline of 10-13%, a 7-day drop of over 20%, roughly halved from the recent high of over $500.
- **Market cap ranking**: Still within the top 20-30, but the privacy coin second place has been overtaken by Monero (XMR).
- **Network hashrate**: Currently about **13–15 GH/s**, difficulty around 125M-138M, with minor fluctuations, the network itself is operating normally, with no 51% attack risk.
- **Privacy adoption**: Shielded ZEC (fully private transactions) still at a historical high, after a surge in 2025, exceeding 30% (about 4.9 million ZEC), indicating privacy demand is still present.
- **Trading volume**: 24-hour trading volume of 700-800 million USD, still active, but mainly panic selling and bottom-fishing.

**Short-term (1-3 months) bearish factors:**
- Almost the entire core development team (ECC) has left, development activity has dropped to the lowest since 2021, short-term upgrades (like Halo2, cross-chain bridges, Ztarknet L2) will be affected.
- Market sentiment is very panicked, many worry "Zcash is dead" or that development has stalled.
- Regulatory pressure has always been present; privacy coins could be delisted from exchanges at any time (EU MiCA etc.).

**Medium to long-term outlook is actually not that bleak:**
- Zcash Foundation has issued statements: **The network is decentralized; no single team can control it, and the protocol continues to operate normally**.
- The departing ECC team has quickly launched a new wallet (CashZ Wallet), and continues to develop Zcash-related projects, essentially "rebranding" and continuing their work.
- In 2025, ZEC surged over 8 times (from a few tens of dollars to over 700), mainly due to privacy narrative revival and institutional interest; the fundamentals are actually much stronger than 2022-2024.
- Many analysts believe that as long as the $300-320 support holds, the structure remains bullish, and a rebound to $500-600 or even higher is possible (if governance stabilizes + cross-chain adoption).

**In summary:**
The network is very healthy, but the price is short-term wounded; in terms of faith, it depends on how you define "top-tier privacy coin."
If you are a long-term holder, it might be a heavy loss now but also a bargain opportunity; if you are a short-term/trader or emotional player, the risk is high now, and it’s recommended to wait for clarity (new team roadmap, price stabilization signals).

One sentence: **ZEC is not dead, but is undergoing a very real "trust crisis + price nuclear bomb"; whether it can recover quickly depends on the community and the new team’s execution.**
Whether to go all-in depends on how deep your faith in the privacy narrative is. 😂