Backed by Top VCs, Zcash Original Team Raises $25 Million for “Re-entrepreneurship”

On March 9, the Zcash development organization Zcash Open Development Lab (ZODL) announced the completion of a seed funding round exceeding $25 million. Participants in this round include Paradigm, a16z 暗号, Winklevoss Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Cypherpunk Technologies, Maelstrom (Arthur Hayes’s family office), Chapter One, as well as notable individual investors such as Balaji Srinivasan, David Friedberg, Haseeb Qureshi, Mert, and James Nicholas.

It is reported that the funds from this financing round will be used by ZODL to expand its engineering team and accelerate the development of the Zcash protocol and its self-custody privacy wallet, Zodl.

Image Source: ZODL Tweet

The core development force of Zcash has officially transitioned from a non-profit governance model to an independent commercial startup entity. Boosted by this positive funding news, the price of Zcash (ZEC) saw a slight recovery, touching $225. 市場 attention may stem from ZODL’s unique background. ZODL was founded by Josh Swihart, the former CEO of Zcash’s original lead development company, Electric Coin Company (ECC), and brings together the entire former ECC engineering and product team who collectively resigned in January this year due to governance disagreements.

From ECC Crisis to ZODL Independence

Since its inception in 2016, Zcash has been primarily developed by the Electric Coin Company (ECC). As an industry pioneer in zero-knowledge proofs (zk-SNARKs), ECC operated for years under the governance framework of the non-profit organization Bootstrap, aiming to achieve truly shielded private transactions.

After Josh Swihart took over as CEO of ECC at the end of 2023, he initiated a crucial process of transitioning Zcash towards a user experience (UX) focus. The flagship wallet he spearheaded, Zashi (now renamed Zodl), became a turning point for the ecosystem.

According to information revealed by ZODL in the funding announcement, since its launch in 2024, this app has driven growth in Zcash’s Shielded Pool by over 400%.

By partnering with Flexa to enable retail payments, collaborating with Keystone to implement cold storage solutions, and working with the NEAR team to enable seamless ZEC swaps via NEAR intents, the ecosystem has expanded. Since the Swap feature launched in October 2025, it has processed over $600 million in ZEC swap volume.

Image Source: Josh Swihart Tweet

However, long-standing issues with the governance structure erupted in January 2026. Josh pointed out that irreconcilable differences existed between the team and the Bootstrap board (a key non-profit governance entity in the Zcash ecosystem, registered in the US) regarding the operational direction of the Zcash privacy protocol, leading to a material change in employment conditions.

This crisis ultimately resulted in the collective resignation of ECC’s entire engineering and product team, including CEO Josh Swihart, Chief Scientist Chelsea Komlo, senior engineer Sean Bowe, and approximately 25 others. Following the announcement, ZEC’s price briefly fell below 400 USDT on the same day, marking a drop of over 14% within 4 hours.

ZODL’s Head of Marketing, peacemonger, tweeted: “When we left, we didn’t take any capital with us, only the team and the unfinished work.” This group of Zcash OGs, under the name ZODL, achieved a rebirth without compromise.

Image Source: peacemonger Tweet

After its establishment, ZODL not only seamlessly took over the operation of the Zodl wallet but also achieved a transition in identity from a “grant recipient” to an “independent commercial entity.”

Josh emphasized that this funding round of over $25 million allows the team to turn its ambitions into reality without relying on grants from the Zcash Developer Fund (Dev Fund). This independence grants the team purer decision-making authority.

For investors, ZODL’s moat might not only be its battle-tested code but also this core team, which has been deeply involved in the privacy field for a decade and maintained high cohesion through the crisis.

Why Are Top-Tier Funds Investing Now?

The privacy sector has seen a surge since the end of 2025. According to Bitget market data, ZEC reached a high of 557.56 USDT, and XMR (Monero) reached a high of 799.10 USDT. The total market capitalization of privacy coins peaked at over $24 billion.

Against this backdrop, ZODL’s funding of over $25 million is not only the largest private investment in Zcash’s ecosystem history but also a collective vote of confidence from top-tier Web3 capital in the privacy narrative.

Among the investors, Paradigm and a16z crypto represent the highest echelon of institutional judgment in crypto infrastructure. a16z partner Ali Yahya has publicly stated that “privacy will be crypto’s biggest moat,” and privacy has become a core investment theme for them in 2026.

Image Source: a16zcrypto podcast

Winklevoss Capital, founded by the Gemini exchange founders, has long been deeply invested in Zcash, viewing it as a core component of privacy infrastructure in the AI era. The participation of Coinbase Ventures brings further compliance endorsement and the potential for integration into mainstream ecosystems.

Angel investor Balaji Srinivasan, a well-known evangelist for the “ZK-everything” vision, デフィnes privacy as the third stage of crypto, following PoW and programmability. The convergence of these five parties on a single project is itself a signal.

Will ZODL Launch a トークン? And Where is the Ecosystem Headed?

Currently, there is no official statement regarding a token launch. The core narrative of the funding announcement remains “serving the ZEC ecosystem.”

Moreover, directly launching a competing token doesn’t make logical sense. Investors like Winklevoss Capital and Cypherpunk Technologies hold significant amounts of ZEC themselves, creating a clear conflict of interest.

However, it’s rare for Paradigm and a16z’s Web3 investments not to include token purchase clauses. Furthermore, the $25 million seed round size exceeds the needs of merely developing a protocol and an open-source wallet.

A more likely path is to center value around ZEC, supplemented by a lightweight governance token for ecosystem incentives. The possibility of a token launch in the short term is low, but some form of token mechanism in the medium to long term is almost inevitable. This is also the most natural way for top-tier institutions to achieve liquidity exits.

Meanwhile, the disagreement between ZODL and Bootstrap is rooted in control over development funds and decision-making power regarding the protocol’s direction. The $25 million in independent funding has completely freed ZODL from reliance on the Developer Fund, eliminating the motivation for negotiation.

Although there are no signals of a direct fork at present, a soft split has already occurred. ZODL holds the wallet IP and core engineering talent, while the Zcash Foundation focuses on an independent roadmap for the node and infrastructure layer. These two forces will operate in parallel for the long term.

Over the next 6 to 12 months, if public disagreements arise between the two sides regarding protocol upgrade directions, that will be the moment ZEC investors truly need to be vigilant.

この記事はインターネットから得たものです。 Backed by Top VCs, Zcash Original Team Raises $25 Million for “Re-entrepreneurship”

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