Author:Josh Swihart, Founder of ZODL
Compiled by:Felix, PANews
Editor's Note: Zcash was once seen as a pioneer in the privacy coin track, but it was long mired in governance deadlock and user growth difficulties. After three years of adjustment, Zcash has transformed. ZODL founder (former ECC CEO) Josh Swihart is a core driver of this transformation. This article is his systematic exposition of Zcash's past, present, and future. The details are as follows.
I greatly enjoy reading the various theories about Zcash's sustained strong performance since late last year, but few delve into the details. Looking back over the past three years, I will try to clarify the reasons for Zcash's current strong momentum and everything it has experienced to get to this point.
Three years ago, Zcash delivered world-changing cryptographic technology but was struggling to move forward. At that time, ZEC was trading around $30 for a long period. Less than 11% of the supply was in the anonymity pool. The community forums were in chaos, filled with governance disputes and internal strife. Two entities (ECC and the Zcash Foundation) had de facto veto power over protocol evolution through a US-based trademark agreement. Meanwhile, these two entities also received a development fund that was guaranteed to be disbursed to them regardless of performance.
Today, ZEC is priced around $600, up about 1500% year-to-date. Approximately 31% (worth over $3 billion) of funds are stored in user-controlled anonymous wallets. By mid-March, the proportion of anonymous transactions had climbed to 86.5%. Tachyon received funding as a scaling project aligned with community goals. NU6 completely abolished the direct funding model and reset the protocol's own development funding model. ZODL completed a $25 million financing round from institutions including Paradigm, a16z crypto, Winklevoss Capital, and Coinbase Ventures.
Everything has a cause and effect. Here are the key breakthroughs and the reasons for the accelerated growth.
Unshackling Governance
For the first eight years, Zcash allocated 20% of each block reward to two fixed entities (later adding the Zcash Community Grants fund). This created a problem of entrenched interest monopolies. These entities controlled governance without any pressure to increase influence, and the community couldn't reallocate resources. During my time at ECC, I witnessed firsthand the negative effects of these distorted incentives.
Things changed. In May 2024, ECC unilaterally announced it would no longer accept direct funding. This move forced the issue: the old model couldn't survive if the biggest beneficiary refused to participate. NU6 eliminated direct funding, allocating 8% to the Zcash Community Grants (ZCG) for ecosystem grants and another 12% to a protocol-controlled "vault" for ZEC holders to retrospectively distribute to those who made significant contributions.
This model introduced a clear time limit. Both the 8% and 12% funds will expire at the third halving in late 2028. The community can choose to renew, but it's not guaranteed; it would require overwhelming consensus within the community.
Subsequently, in August 2024, ECC formally issued a notice to terminate the trademark agreement, which had given ECC and ZF a "2-of-2 multisig control" over the protocol. Six months later, the Zcash Foundation (ZF) announced it would no longer use trademark rights to interfere in governance. The monopoly on Zcash governance was broken; token holders and other groups in the ecosystem could finally have a voice. No single entity, including ZF's ZCAP, could monopolize the interpretation of community sentiment.
Zcash was finally free.
Unshackling Product
In January 2024, we (then named ECC) pivoted to focus on user growth. This was a fundamental shift from the previous years.
For years, the engineering team focused on cryptographic research, core protocol, and enhancing privacy. These efforts made Zcash's privacy technology outstanding but failed to attract new users. In fact, by 2023, the community size was even shrinking.
On platform X, Zcash holders complained about stagnant prices and regulatory pressure, questioning whether "privacy coins" had a future. At the time, 60% of tweets were negative or neutral. Research initiated by ZURE (@peacemongerz, current ZODL Head of Marketing) showed that ZEC holders had a Net Promoter Score (NPS) as low as -60, indicating extreme user dissatisfaction.
We listened and started building products users actually wanted to use. This was, and still is, our guiding light, directing the development of the Zodl wallet, the Zallet CLI wallet, and even the core protocol.
Zashi (later renamed Zodl), released in March 2024, is the most visible manifestation of this new strategy: anonymous by default, hardware wallet support, cross-currency swaps. We delivered a world-class privacy currency packaged in a simple, easy-to-use interface.
The impact is evident. By the end of 2025, the anonymous supply grew from ~11% to ~30%, representing over 400% growth in absolute ZEC terms. Every token in the anonymity pool is self-custodied by users. By mid-March, anonymous transactions reached 86.5%. Since last October, the wallet has processed over $600 million in ZEC swaps. This isn't centralized exchange wash trading or vault asset parking; it's real users choosing privacy and holding their own keys.
Unshackling Narrative
Zcash faced a positioning problem. The "privacy coin" label led to delistings from exchanges, scrutiny from regulators, and avoidance by institutional investors. The project's true value was obscured: a Bitcoin-like monetary policy with verifiable, private payments enabled by advanced cryptography.
Today, Zcash is positioned as unstoppable privacy money. Zcash is the protocol, ZEC is the asset, and Zodl is the gateway to self-sovereignty through privacy, enabling freedom of speech, freedom of transaction, and sovereign independence. This is structural: a community-governed protocol, a scarce asset for private store of value and payments, and a gateway decoupled from protocol governance, competing solely on product quality. This is the "trinity" of privacy money.
With this framework, exchanges, ETF issuers, and infrastructure providers can support the asset without taking a stance on how users use the protocol. This laid the groundwork for ZEC entering multi-chain ecosystems, Robinhood listing, Multicoin's position disclosure, Grayscale's ETF filing, and Foundry launching a mining pool. The value proposition is now clearly visible to allocators who previously couldn't underwrite the asset.
Unshackling Organization
In January 2026, after a dispute with the board of Bootstrap (a US 501(c)(3) nonprofit), the entire ECC team resigned en masse and formed the Zcash Open Development Laboratory (ZODL). The dispute centered on control: a small, non-working board vs. the team itself. The board prioritized its own interests, so the team left, restarting under a mission-first organizational structure.
Nonprofits struggle to scale. Building consumer-grade products at the speed Zcash requires needs startup-like capital, fast hiring, and efficient decision-making. ZODL's $25 million funding from Paradigm, a16z, and others is a strong signal, a recognition of the team and the scaling mission. Across the industry, the "Avengers" assembled.
Current Market Sentiment
The strongest sentiment indicator is the size of the anonymity pool. Users don't move ZEC into self-custodied anonymous addresses for speculation. They do it because of trust and belief. The growth from 11% to 31% of supply represents hundreds of thousands of independent decisions to self-custody and protect privacy.
LunarCrush data shows ZEC's discussion volume grew 15,245% over the past year, compared to 190% for Bitcoin. ZEC ranks #2 in AltRank across the entire crypto market. Positive sentiment is at 81%. GitHub commit velocity is up ~20% year-over-year. Forum topics have shifted from governance gripes to product and technical work.
What's next?
In short, the near-term focus is user experience, scalability, and post-quantum readiness.
Zodl Wallet: We are further polishing performance, adding more swap options, on/off ramps, and user-requested features while keeping it simple and easy to use. The @zkDragon team has also joined to help develop features like in-app holder voting.
Scalability: With block time reduction from 75 seconds to 25 seconds and the Tachyon project led by @ebfull, scalability will increase dramatically. Tachyon rearchitects the protocol around stateless wallets carrying recursive zero-knowledge proofs, removing the synchronization bottleneck that plagued the network for years, targeting Visa/Mastercard-level throughput. In the process, we will deprecate the old zcashd node and migrate to the modern, Rust-written zebrad.
Post-Quantum: "Quantum-recoverable" wallets are expected to launch within a month, with full post-quantum state expected within 12-18 months. This will protect user funds from the cryptographic transition the financial system must face in the coming decade.
As the work matures, the next network upgrade will gradually turn these focus areas into protocol changes. Specifics are still being refined through ZIP discussions.
In summary, Zcash will be faster, easier to use, more feature-rich, more scalable, and post-quantum secure.
Related Reading: Behind the 70% Surge: Why the Forgotten Zcash Suddenly "Turned Red" in 2026?
